 Hello, I'm here. Can you hear me? Welcome to CN Live, Season 3, Episode 7, Assange on the Brink. I'm Joe Laurier, the editor-in-chief of Consorting News. And I'm Elizabeth Loss. There have been two dramatic developments in the US case against imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher, Julian Assange, within the past two weeks. The Icelandic News Magazine stunned in on June 26 revealed that a key US witness in the indictment of Assange for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion had changed his story. And on Wednesday, the High Court in London allowed the US to appeal a January 4 magistrate's decision against excruciating Assange to the US because of his mental health and the harsh conditions of the US prisons, putting him at a high risk of suicide. The High Court said, however, that the US could not appeal to judgment of Assange's health, but only that of US prison conditions. The US promised it would not put Assange under special measures of isolation if he were extradited and if convicted would allow him to serve his sentence in Australia. This appears to be a desperate move by the United States to try to convince the High Court to overturn the decision not to extradite Assange. In the Stundan article, Sigurdur Thordesan, who was a volunteer with WikiLeaks in Iceland in 2010, stole about $50,000 from WikiLeaks. And when WikiLeaks tried to get the money back, he went to the US embassy to offer himself as an FBI informant in exchange for immunity. He told the FBI many tales of Assange directing hacking operations, which Thordesan now admits were all lies. Mr. Blower Edwards Snowden tweeted that these revelations meant the case against Assange had collapsed, but has it. Joining us today from Iceland to discuss these two major developments are WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristin Raffensen, ex-Islandic Interior Minister Gugmundur Janssen, and to speak about how he resisted an FBI sting against Assange. A student journalist, Beatmar Alexandersen. And from London, we hope to be joined by consortium news legal analyst, Alexander McCuris. And in Washington radio host and CN columnist, consortium news columnist, John Kiryako is here, who was imprisoned for blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program. Australian member of parliament, Julian Hill, spoke to us earlier from Canberra about the U.S. offer to send Assange to an Australian prison if convicted. We also contacted Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, who has voiced support for Assange in the past. And we also contacted the teenager, as he was referred to in the U.S. indictment, Sigridor Thordesan, neither responded by airtime. So let's begin with the background to the story and set in Iceland in 2010, how Thordesan became an FBI informant and was participating in a sting operation against drilling Assange until our first guest got in the way. Edwin Doerr, can you tell us when you were Interior Minister, what happened? What was your role in this story? Particularly how you came to understand that Thordesan and Sabo, the leader of the anonymous officer, Lulsek, were both FBI informants and were plotting a sting against Assange. Yes, I was Minister of Interior, as you said, in the government that was in power in Iceland from 2009 until 2013. Now, in the summer of 2011, we got a word from American authorities through Icelandic Police and the Icelandic Foreign Office that the American intelligence had obtained information that Icelandic institutions, key institutions, might be under imminent computer attack. We, of course, were alarmed and contacted all the major institutions that we could think were under such a threat, the Icelandic energy or power industry and then government institutions. Now, this was in June 2011. The American police, the FBI and the prosecutor of New York Police, they asked if we were interested to share information and to cooperate on the investigation on this matter. Of course, we were interested to receive all information they might have on such a serious matter. So, at the beginning of July, this year, 2011, we issued a letter, a rogatory, opening for such cooperation. Now, it turned out later that the Americans, the FBI and the New York state prosecutor, interpreted this or wanted to use this as a green light to enter Iceland for completely different purposes. And this is what happened in August that year. A plain load of FBI agents, between seven and nine of them, landed at Reykjavik Airport, and proceeded to the... This was on the evening of 24th of August, in the following morning, they proceeded to the office of the Icelandic state prosecutor and started having a discussion with them when I received word of their coming to Iceland. And I, of course, wanted to know what was their mission, what was the purpose of their visit, and then I learned what really was happening. And what was that? Well, they were in Iceland to try to frame WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in particular. Now, these are serious allegations, but I choose my words very, very carefully, because I knew this from first hand, from within the Icelandic administration. They were told that the idea was to use an Icelandic citizen, Sigurd Rinki Thordarsson, as an entrapment to contact Julian Assange and involve him in a criminal case to be used later in the United States. This I know for certain, and I have stated this time and again, in February 2014 before 2013, I say, before the Icelandic Foreign Affairs Committee and the Icelandic Parliament, where this was discussed. And this, in fact, is not disputed. This is what happened. The FBI came to Iceland to frame Julian Assange. That was the purpose of the visit. When I knew this, I said that this was not in accordance to the letter of the Rotary we issued at the beginning of July, early in December, and they had no permission to stay on in Iceland. And when I heard that they were on the way to the Icelandic police headquarters for a meeting on the matter, I stopped this immediately and said there should be no further cooperation with this mission. And they were made to understand that they were not wanted in Iceland. As policemen, they were welcome to look at our waterfalls and our cases and the sites. But for police work, they could not stay on. And what happened next was that I heard a couple of days later that they were still in Iceland. And then we made it clear to the US Embassy that they were not wanted here and they left the country. This is what happened. This is the background. Now, were you surprised when you read in Stundan magazine that Thor Thatzin was, who at the time was an FBI informant, was lying about the whole thing that he told the FBI about Julian Assange having conducted hacking operations through him and that he was, in fact, hacking rather than just receiving information as a journalist? Were you surprised by these revelations? No, I was not surprised. Nothing in this case surprises me at all. Because as I see it, I've always seen this as a conspiracy. This was a conspiracy directed against us, the Icelandic authorities. They were trying, the American police authorities were trying to get our complicity to get us to take part in cooperating on a case against Julian Assange. Now, when was it? Two years, a couple of years ago, Pompeo, Mike Pompeo, he said at the time, the foreign secretary of the United States, former head of the CIA, of course. He said WikiLeaks is a non-governmental intelligence operation which must be taken down. It was a priority to take WikiLeaks down. Now, that was not a new policy. I experienced the attempt to execute that policy in Iceland in 2011 to get us complicit in that conspiracy. That was the purpose of the visit of the FBI to Iceland in 2011. So because you knew that this was a Singh operation, you probably thought along that Thor Dotson was making up these allegations against Assange. Is that right? You see, at the time, there were suggestions made to me that I should have a meeting with Cyril Thoralsson. I didn't want to do that. I knew nothing of that person at all. All I was interested in was the visit of the FBI to Iceland. And if they had the permits, they were operating along. That was my only interest at the matter. If you had asked me, and people certainly did ask me, where I cited the matter, I would have said, I, of course, cite with WikiLeaks. I cite with WikiLeaks. I take a stand with WikiLeaks, not the American authorities. I take sides with the whistleblower, not with those who try to break the whistleblower. So you never met Thor Dotson, but you knew of his about him back then? Yes. Yes. And I knew, you see, that they were going to interview him. And what the police told me at the time was that they saw their part in the matter only as protecting an Icelandic citizen. I said, I am protecting Icelandic interests. I am the minister of interior. And I am concerned with things being done according to the rule of law. And you don't need the FBI's help to protect Icelandic citizens as interior minister. Kristen, you were there at the time in Iceland. You were involved in these events. Can you give us your input on what you knew about Thor Dotson back then? And what do you think what you thought he was up to? And then, of course, what's the significance of him now recanting this testimony that wound up in the superseding indictment? Well, I mean, I wasn't surprised that he would seek cooperation with the FBI because at the time in 2011, we were trying to hunt him down basically and had discovered that he had been stealing money from us proceeds of online sales of merchandise that Mr. Dotson actually got sent to his own personal back account by forging an email from Julian Assange. So, I mean, here's a con man of this. And later on, of course, he was sentenced for that act and conning over 2,000 other individuals and organization on top of the later. Actually, after that, he was sentenced as well for sexual abusing 908 boys. So this is the person, the individual that FBI decided to work with. The bits and pieces of the story came out throughout the years. And actually, now with the article in Stundin, we got the full story, the full story about how this manipulation went about in 2011. And as Mr. Dotson just said, it is extraordinary how far the FBI and DOJ was willing to go in manipulating Iceland. And one thing that Gjartmar, the journalist, can talk about later is the simple fact that when FBI was making this offer to save Iceland from these serious so-called computer attacks, shortly before that, actually, so-called DDoS attacks were made against Icelandic interests. But that was under the watchful eye of the FBI. And even instigated by the FBI, because it was their men that they had flipped into cooperation that was instigating those attacks. So this is how far they were willing to go. They were allowing attacks to happen. Didn't want Iceland. But then came to the authorities, Iceland said, you are under serious threat. Let's help. But that was just a facade to frame Julian and go after Wikileaks. The fact that they actually came later after Julian was removed from the embassy on April 11, 2019 and gave an immunity deal to this individual in exchange for his witness testimony and then inserted in an updated indictment against Julian last summer, a lot of elements that were an allegation, very serious allegations that were solely based on that individual and his testimony. We're talking about hacking operation that they alleged that Julian was instigating and even an attempt to get phone recordings from Icelandic MPs. And this all sort of landed into the judgment of Baraitse on January 4th, where she frequently cites these allegations where she is talking about the dual criminality test which has to be met before an extradition is considered. So it obviously, this attempt to mislead the UK courts in the extradition case did work, because it had an effect. And now you can imagine then how relieved we were to see Björsmals incredible work incident where after going through all the material that he had access to and hours upon hours of interviews with the photos on, he recounts and says, this never happened. It's baseless. And one would think that blows such a huge hole in the entire effort of the DOJ that of course, Snowden should be right. This should be the end of it. This comes on top of previous stories where it has been established very firmly that the CIA was through an intermediary spying on Julian's meetings with lawyers in the Ecuador Embassy, recording those meetings, stealing legal documents from those lawyers. So I mean, how it just, it's all falling apart. The key witness has now recanted and we know that his rights were violated so you can never have a fair trial in the U.S. So it should be the end of it. But still they were asking for an appeal in the UK courts and granted the appeal on a limited basis. So the serious issue here is that Julian is still sitting in Belmont's prison and will have to sit in prison for some more months when the, until the appeal process is finalized. Of course, the U.S. would argue that there are other parts to the indictment. The Espionage Act charges, which we know is really a violation of the First Amendment because Cassandra was working as a journalist, but also his relationship with Chelsea Manning, which we know from testimony during the hearing in September from expert witnesses that Manning could not have gotten those documents anyway and that the indictment itself says Manning had clearance to get all of those, that material. But this information from Thordeson was given to the FBI back in 2011, I believe. And in fact, we read about it in a year later in the Rolling Stone article, which now looks quite dodgy in light of his confession. But that information was known to the FBI then. Why, Kristen, do you think that they left it out of the indictment, the first one, and put it only in seemingly that the last minute in the superseding one? What were they trying to do? That they would seem to be bolstering a weak case? Is that what you think happened? I think that's exactly what happened. And when you consider these two parts in the indictment, of course, you have all the espionage charges which everybody sees the serious implication of them against and a threat to press freedom and the First Amendment. But then you have the so-called hacking charge, which is mostly a PR stunt in many ways. It is the attempt to depict Julian not as a journalist but as a hacker. So it's based on this alleged conspiracy that Julian took active part in Chelsea Manning's attempt to get information out. So he is a co-conspirator. But it was already known in the first half of the hearing in London last year in February how thin that case was. It was based mostly on a sentence allegedly from Julian where he says to, allegedly to Chelsea Manning, curious eyes never run dry. And that's repeatedly cited in the indictment that the smoking gun, that journalist telling his source, curious eyes never run dry. I mean, everybody sees it. We don't have to have a law degree to see how ridiculous that is. So they were desperate to underpin that. So in the middle of the proceedings, just a couple of weeks before it was commenced in September, they throw in these allegations based on photos from the testimony last summer. And now they are gone and it should be the end of it. So I think it was an act of desperation to try to upgrade the indictment to sort of hammer in this understanding or this depiction of Julian as a dirty hacker, not the journalist that he is. You wonder if the DRJ themselves weren't that convinced or they knew that this was false testimony and they didn't put it in the original indictment and wait it to the last minute and pull it out of the bag because they were desperate. I wanna correct something I said, the expert witness in the hearing in September did not say that Chelsea Manning couldn't get the documents but that she couldn't go in and sign in as an administrator. She had access to the documents. Now I wanna turn to Beatmore Anderson who was the student journalist, the lead journalist on the groundbreaking story on June 26th in which Thornton, for some odd reason, which we're gonna try to find out, decided to tell the world that he was lying, that he had told the FBI a whole pack of lies about Assange that wound up in this indictment. Beatmore, thank you for joining us. Can you hear us? Thank you. Okay, so tell me, how did you come onto this story? Well, it all started actually back in 2018, my first story about actually Siki the Hacker, I miss the Thornton story, not a correct name to call him a hacker. We'll do maybe in further details, we're gonna read later. But yeah, I started back in 2018 with a story regarding his frauds. And back now in this year, I started hearing another rumor that he was back into the con artist game. So my first story about him was actually about how he was conning corporations here in Iceland out of money by using shell companies. And then of course, I mean, he's famously known for his involvement through the WikiLeaks case. And I thought, why not continue the conversation since I've already got him to confess for fraud here in Iceland. Maybe I can get some information out of him regarding the FBI case. And I had a long session of injuries with him and we spoke for many hours together regarding the case and also his background and a lot of off the record, of course. But it's, this is where it started all with his frauds and he has a long history of that here in Iceland. I wonder that you did not quote him once in that article. Was that one of the conditions he gave? No, no, no. I mean, no, we have it actually in the Icelandic story. We actually have quotes from him. And the Icelandic article is actually much longer and it explains a lot more around the background details. The English version is only just glossary out of that. So about in the next coming days and weeks we will be putting more audio recordings out and direct quotes from him regarding certain issues inside the indictment. And when you look at what he told me and then what says in the indictment, it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't match. There's so much strange information that he's telling me that it's not according to the indictment and also through all the data that I have via the chat logs and so on to point out that these things in the indictment could be right. So I don't see how they match. Yeah, I wanted to bring up the chat logs and because either he's lying to the FBI or the FBI knew that he was lying and they went with it anyway or he was lying to you. But you've got these chat logs that nail it, right? This is documentary proof. It's not just his word, we have to take proof. Well, there are some proof, yes. And this can be connected via the chat logs but I think also you cannot forget that he could be lying to me, he could be lying to the FBI. He's a known liar, so we don't know. So I have to take it that he's telling me the right thing at the time and also I can confirm most of it or some of it with the chat logs. You know that in his agreement his immunity deal with the FBI, has there, have you seen that? Do you know if there's a clause where they could lift that immunity now that he's spoken the truth about what happened? Well, it could cause some legal problems regarding this and I have actually seen the agreement and he actually gave it to me. We're not gonna publish it because I promised not to do so. And the agreement can, yes, with this if this is what he says is true but maybe he just keeps lying to the FBI that he's told me a lie and he told them the truth. Who knows? But I don't know what kind of legal circumstances can happen in the future for him. Well, here's the really big question for you. Why did he decide to do this now? Why would, if you just said that he could get into legal trouble, he could lose his immunity with the FBI, why did he decide to tell the truth now all of a sudden? I have absolutely no idea. It's, I mean, I spent almost nine hours with him through the articles I've written about him and it could be several reasons. I'm not a trained psychologist and have no experience in that field. So I could only guess but it's not my place to do so but I have no idea why he would tell me these things and still trying to figure that out. Well, he's apparently been diagnosed as a sociopath legally but could he've had some conscience? Could he be seeing what's happening to Assange in prison and decided to speak out because he couldn't bear it? He seemed to really have had a good relationship with him at one point if you believe that he was a pro-article. Well, I mean, through our conversations, of course he felt bad for Assange when I pushed him and I mean, through these hours of interviews, I mean, he gave me, you know, first time he gave me a one answer for a question and then I asked him maybe, you know, have 30 minutes, I would lie to the same question and he would give me a, you know, a different answer and I pushed and pushed until he would break and give me the correct ones regarding the evidence I had. So it's, I mean, there could be, yes, he actually told me that he felt bad of what's happening to Julian but it's the only thing that he talked to me about is this one only sentence that he actually felt bad that when I asked him, do you feel bad about it? And he said, yes. All right, my last question for you here is about his computer skills. You're right that he really didn't have any but if you believe that role in stone story, he broke into, he hacked into a Skype conference call, for example, did he have any computer skills? Was he faking it with you to say he didn't? What do you think was going on there? Well, actually he told me that he did not come up with the nickname, Siky the Hacker. That there was somebody else who came up with that but through the chat logs, we can see evidence is that he's asking persons and organizations like the FBI for help regarding technical issues to finish. But for example, he tries to get the help of the FBI to get a video out of a mobile phone. He's asking hackers to help himself with a website that he was actually using to con people. It's just basic computer techniques that any hacker would actually know with a really low skill in computers. Did he actually have these relationships with the hackers that he told the FBI he worked with, with the Sange? Or did he not even know these people? Well, he had chats with them. We have the chat logs in the conversations with these hackers, including Sapu and Kyla and the others too. And he pressured them, especially one hacker from Lebanon to do the work. And he actually took a hacker from Lebanon and said that, how can you be sure this is not a text and to gain some information from the city of Reykjavik? So it's, and also in the chat logs, you can see that he's asking them to attack this ministry and another ministry and this corporation and so on. So there's no, in the whole chat logs, there's no indication that there's anybody else asking for this then Sinki. This is the name of a scientist never mentioned. He never says that he's been told to do this. And if you can read through the lines, it's like he's on a power trip using Wikileaks as a stepping stone to convince these hackers that he's the big man in the league. So inside Wikileaks. So I mean, there's basically no evidence that he was, you know, that anybody else was on this than him. Bottom line, he was working on his own. He was not being directed by Assange. Elizabeth. No, and he actually said that. He said, I asked him several times, did Assange ask you to hack these institutions, do these DDoS attacks on these institutions? And he always said, no, but he tried to convince me that there was some kind of the atmosphere inside Wikileaks that he had to do it. But there's no evidence about it in any chat logs that I have seen. He just told the FBI that he was being directed by Assange in order to get this deal. Well, yeah, I mean, always when I asked, do you have any confirmation that Julian Assange asked you via a chat or something? And we're talking about huge communications. These people talked a lot online, but there's nothing that indicates that he was asked for this. And I several times asked him again, when did Assange ask you these? And he gave me strange answers regarding this. And also he always said, no, he asked me personally, just me and him talking. So there's nothing to back up his testimony regarding how he was asked to do these things. Elizabeth, sorry. No, no worries. Kristen, I wanted to ask you about the early reporting by Rolling Stone on this story with Borderson. It portrayed him as being highly placed within WikiLeaks and very close to Assange before his embezzlement was discovered. I wanted to ask you if this was accurate or was it another fabrication to present Borderson as more, allow him to increase his importance in general, kind of an ego trip. And can you describe for us really what his role was in WikiLeaks in more detail before you all discovered that he was essentially a con man? This Rolling Stone story is shameful. And I must say that, you know, I did have a discussion with the journalist before he published. And so he had all the facts, but he did dismiss the facts. There are two things that I'm really angry about. One thing is, for example, that it is depicted in a story that Borderson was in some kind of a dispute over money issues, that he was owed this money. It was like a labor dispute, but not theft. And he admitted to the theft later on in trial and was sentenced for it. And the second thing was that at the time of writing, he was already also known that he was a predator and a case was not the attention of the police. And it was downplayed by the journalist as a sane sex experiment, something in Nopoulos. I think that's shameful because we are talking about victims here. I mean, he was sentenced for violating nine boys underage. There were 11 victims originally. There were nine, the charges were pressed on nine counts. One of the victims actually committed suicide. So this is a very serious thing. So I don't care about this money issue, but this is serious. And I am very annoyed that the journalist and the paper should depict him in this manner. His role within the organization is simply two-fold. He was a volunteer for a brief time in 2010 to 2011. This is in the period where only the staff is inundated with the work of publishing the military documents and cable gate project. We started that towards the end of the 2010. He was put in charge as a moderator on the open IRC chat line which was sort of WikiLeaks platform where people would come together and have a discussion. He abused that platform into actually inflating his position and get into contact with journalists and with hackers and presented themselves as a very important person within the organization. So he abused that position. Even though he had been strictly warned, you don't have a discussion with the journalist. You just pass on details if there are questions there. And of course, we would not authorize a volunteer to be in a source relationship or anything of that nature. Secondly, he was asked to oversee and work with a Canadian volunteer who offered to put up this online shop. Mind you, at that time, we were under a backing blockade so all donations were frozen for us. So a Canadian volunteer offered to set up an online shop selling coffee mugs with WikiLeaks local t-shirts, et cetera. So he was put in charge with working with him and he abused that position by fabricating an email from Julian Assange to the sales platform and instructing the people to pass all the donations and all the proceeds to his private bank account in Iceland. So this pretty much sums up what his role was, this limited role. But he was able, he is a con artist. We had to admit that he went under our radar but it's very hard to recognize a borderline sociopath as he has been diagnosed according to court records. And he is a con artist and basically a sick person. And you were talking with Gjafmar earlier whether he was telling the truth now and lying before or whether he is lying now and told the truth before. But does it even matter? We're talking about a witness with that criminal history, with that diagnosed borderline sociopath by a court appointed psychiatrist's evaluation. This is the person that the department of justice is relying on as a witness. That shows the length that the DOJ is willing to go in this case against Julian and against those certain advocates. Oh, Winder, I have a question for you about the unique kind of position that Iceland has had in this story over the years. It seems like Iceland and Ecuador are two countries that at least at some point, I mean, Ecuador less so in recent years, obviously, managed to stand up against US authorities in that relentless persecution of Assange. What to you makes Iceland unique in this respect? How does it maintain this semblance of independence while so many other countries actively work to help set up Assange, for example, Sweden and other countries? Well, I think we were, I wish we would have remained unique for much longer than we did. Because actually when the FBI arrived again in 2019, it seems that Icelandic very regrettably, Icelandic authorities were cooperating. But as I see it, you know, I see, we are talking about a trial of Julian Assange. I, in my mind, we are all on trial. The British justice system is now on trial. The international press is on trial. We are all on trial. We who watched the crimes, the war crimes committed in Iraq, in Afghanistan. We who welcomed the revelations from the TISA, secret TISA negotiations on global issues. We welcomed this information from WikiLeaks. They were all provided by WikiLeaks. We are on trial if we do not stand for the provider, for the provider of this information. So as I see it, you know, we are all on trial. I was very happy with the way we got involved in those days. And I'm very happy with the work, Kristin Rapson and WikiLeaks is doing. I'm happy with Stundin with the revelations now, recently. I looked to what you are doing and I looked to what the members of parliaments throughout the world are now doing. You know, they are rallying to a call on Biden to drop the case against Julian Assange. So probably we are not right in focusing on Iceland or Ecuador. We should be focusing on the whole world. And I have a good feeling now that the world, all of us who care for democracy and freedom of the press, freedom of the world, I have a good feeling that we soon will rise to expectations. I hope you're right. Bjartmar, I just have a really quick question before you before we move on. And that is that as a journalist, are you at all surprised at the lack of more mainstream corporate press coverage of your story in the day since it's broke? I think that for those of us watching the Assange case, it doesn't come as much of a surprise, but is this something you're kind of used to or was it new for you to experience that? Well, I have specified myself, or exclusively a little bit written down a lot about environmental issues. So no, I'm not really, it doesn't occur to me that strange they do it, but it's coming slowly. And I have to protect a little bit, my colleagues abroad regarding this story, because this is, it's a long story. It's over 10 year period for people to go into this and try to explain to the public via the media. It's a difficult thing. And of course there could be some reason why it hasn't been picked up later, but I mean, Washington Post actually mentioned us in their article yesterday. So it's coming up. It's just they have to verify everything. And we're a small publication in Iceland that can fully understand that they need to check and double check. I mean, that's just what good journalists do. And I mean, this story is there, it stands, it's correct and in time it will come out. And there are big media groups showing a lot of interest in this, we're working with them, getting them information and supplying them with facts. So I think this will just, it's a slow burner. Let's say that it's a slow burner. I know people are excited about the news and they want to get this out straight away, but good journalists, they take time. And I mean, I spent three months on these articles and too many man hours. My editor was always screaming at me regarding this, but it's, I think it's important to show that this will come up and I think everybody will see that in the nearest future. A screaming editor. I've never heard such a thing before. No, never, never, you know. Thank you very much for that. Let me have that in any newspaper. Yes, not just like that in the movies, I could tell you, but anyway, I'm going to turn to Alexander McCurris in London and to John Carioca in Washington. They've been patiently sitting there. Alexander, you're a legal analyst, so I want to ask you the legal consequences of this revelation from Beatmar's reporting that a key witness in the superseding indictment was lying and the magistrate, Vanessa Baraitza, completely bought it and meant and completely repeated it in her judgment. What are the implications to the case against the Sange for this? How does this undermine the case? What do you think happens, Alexander? I think it is profoundly important. I think it undermines the case in fundamental ways. Now, it's important to remember that this is a political case. And when I say that, that is admitted by all parties. The argument that has been made is that though it is a political case and though the tradition in Britain is not to extradite people who are the subject of political prosecutions, there is an exception in this case because the act of parliament doesn't prevent extradition of people on political charges to the United States. So this is a political case. And what we have now found is that one of the key witnesses in that case is coming forward and is corroborating in effect what the Minister of Interior of Iceland, Mr. Ogmundo has said, which is that the government that is seeking the extradition of this person in that political case sought to fabricate part of the case against that person. Do you extradite a person to a country whose government seeks to fabricate part of a case against that person in a political case? No, you do not or at least you should not. So I think this is fundamental and I think it goes beyond that second superseding indictment, that part of the second superseding indictment in which Thoridson himself gave the evidence. I think it contaminates the entire case entirely because it goes directly to the question of good faith, to the question of whether you can rely upon a fair trial for Julian Assange if he's sent to the United States, in fact, to the entire way in which the whole case against him was constructed. And just to make a few further points, I think the question of whether or not he was a reliable witness, of course he wasn't a reliable witness. It's astonishing that a second superseding indictment was in part based upon the evidence of this individual and it is incredible that Baritza accepted that that indictment on that basis could be used as part of the case upon which such a Julian Assange could be extradited. Well, she did and it's now blown up in their faces and we'll see what they're going to do about it. Now, there are problems because of course in an appeal process, it's sometimes very difficult to get into the appeal process, evidence which has come to light after the actual trial. But I would have thought in this case, this is so fundamental that it would be unusual, it would be surprising. I would be surprised if the High Court did not take it into account in some form. That's my view. So you completely dismissed that the FBI was an innocent victim of a liar. Well, that is not just what Thoridson is saying. And bear in mind it was the FBI that decided to rely on Thoridson. They put an indictment together on the basis that this man is not a liar. So they relied on him and now they all start with him because he's turning around and saying, well, actually I am a liar, I lied to you. So they're in a way, they're trapped with this, but it's also important to remember that what Thoridson is now saying indirectly corroborates what others have been saying, including the former Minister of Interior of Iceland, whose words should never have been doubted in the first place. So I think that it's going to be very difficult to argue around this one. I think this is a major problem now for the extradition and that's putting it mildly. I think in most cases, if there was a, if this revelation were to come up in this form, there would be serious doubts about whether an extradition could now occur. And again, I'm being very measured in my words, but we will see what happens. This is an extraordinary case and extraordinary things have happened and they may continue to happen for all we know. John Kiriakou in Northern Virginia outside of Washington, you know a couple of things about the FBI. Do you think that they complicit in fabricating this evidence? Do you have any way of knowing for sure? I don't have any way of knowing for sure, Joe, but knowing the FBI, having worked with the FBI for 15 years and then having fought them for the last 10, I would say they absolutely knew this. The FBI never goes into a meeting, let alone an entire case blind. They know exactly with whom they're dealing. And, you know, I could just envision this meeting where they decided that Thornton's background was irrelevant to Julian's case. Okay, he's an embezzler, that's irrelevant. He's a child molester, that doesn't really affect what we're doing against Julian. I could just imagine this meeting because this is what they do. They get to decide what's relevant and what's not relevant. And so, yeah, I don't trust them. I don't think anybody should trust them and I think that this just exposes how they address high-profile cases like this. Well, John, thank you very much. If Elizabeth doesn't have any further questions, we'll move on to part two of our show, which deals with the High Court decision in London on Wednesday to grant leave to the United States to appeal the judgment not to extradite Julian Assange and the offers that the US gave to the High Court. You're watching CN Live, I'm Joe Lauria. On Wednesday, the High Court in London decided to allow the US appeal to go ahead, not to extradite Assange, but only one aspect of that order was allowed, the conditions of US prisons, not the conditions of Julian Assange's health. The court said that the US can challenge those prison conditions. Now, the US knew would have to know the DOJ that it would be absurd for them to argue that they had a humane prison system. So instead, they admitted that, in fact, they don't by offering not to put Assange under special administrative measures during his trial. And if he's convicted, they will allow him to serve his sentence in Australia in a more humane prison. The US also said it was in this submission to the High Court, which we've read about in the press. The US said it reserved the right to drop this offer to Assange if he, quote, were to do something subsequent to the offering of these assurances. And of course, that could mean just about anything. So before we begin the panel discussion on this second part of our story, we spoke earlier about this matter with an Australian member of parliament, Julian Hill. So let's listen to what he had to say. Julian Hill, member of parliament of the Australian parliament, we reported that the US in its effort to obtain Julian Assange and win its appeal, the US is now promising not to put Julian Assange under special administrative measures or isolation and to allow him to be imprisoned in Australia if convicted. So I just wondered if Australia had been asked about this and if they had agreed, I don't suppose you would know, but it seems to me an extraordinary move. Well, I don't know whether Australia was consulted or agreed as his news here, our Prime Minister has not been seen for days. He's disappeared because of the failing vaccine program and quarantine problems. But in terms of a broader response to the US announcement, it sounds desperate, frankly, ridiculous. The case is falling to bits with the news that one of the key witnesses has fabricated evidence. This just seems like a strange stunt in their desperation to get their hands on Assange. Really, they need to respect the UK court's judgment, which found clearly on humanitarian grounds that he's not well enough to be extradited on health grounds. And the promise not to put him in supermax conditions, effectively say, oh, well, we won't really torture him. We'll just try and pursue him for an effective death sentence of 175 years. It's nonsense. In any event, they're saying, but even if eventually after years in a supermax prison, under what conditions, we give him a nice room in the supermax prison, after years of that treatment, when he's exhausted, all appeals and he's almost inevitably convicted, given no defendant has ever escaped conviction in the Eastern District Court of Virginia. After all of that, then we'll send him back to Australia to serve his effective death sentence. I mean, this is ridiculous. They really need to drop the charges and to be nice about it. They won every point of principle. That's what worries me and many people supporting this. They've won the points of principle they were seeking to establish. They'd really need to stop the persecution of Assange and let it go. Don't you think that they risk losing in the counter-appeal that the defense may launch on the points that they won, the political points in terms of extraditing and persecuting journalists? Many people are behind this case and with growing momentum and support to drop the charges. As they think about those points of principle, the chilling effect on the media, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, most importantly, as has been said widely, if what the US government or the Trump administration started has now sort of been continued. If the principle that they were chasing was around in the 1970s, then the Pentagon papers never could have been published. So, you know, there are points of principle which they sought to win and they've convinced the judge in the UK, you're absolutely right. They do risk losing those arguments, particularly now one of their witnesses is collapsing in a counter-appeal if they want to pursue this case. It may well be a lot smarter for the US, disagree with them on this issue as I do about the points of principle. It may well be a lot smarter for them to do the right thing on humanitarian grounds and simply drop the charges. Okay, was there anything else you wanted to say? Look, the other thing that many Australians are feeling is enough is enough. This has gone on for years, a decade, that this guy's been incarcerated one way or another and it's way past time that the Australian government, the Australian Prime Minister stood up for this Australian, stood up for our citizen and asked the US to drop the charges and committed between the UK, the US and Australia that he will not be extradited and leave it at that. Stop the mobbing. Now, what's worrying is that the High Court in London has taken this US offer seriously. The court only allowed the US to challenge the prison conditions and it granted the US leave to appeal that question after hearing this offer. They could have denied the application for an appeal. But one thinks that because the US made this offer that led to the High Court accepting the application for appeal, taking that offer seriously means there's a possibility the US could win on appeal and Assange would be extradited. Kristin, back to you, US has a history of broken promises. In such cases, for example, in the September 2020 Assange extradition hearing, lawyer Lindsay A. Lewis, a witness for the defense testified that the United Kingdom had imposed this condition of not putting someone under Sam's for humanitarian reasons on Abu Hamza, a prisoner who had lost both his hands. But once Hamza was on US soil, he was placed in isolation anyway, where he remains to this day. So Kristin, what did you think when you heard about this offer to Sam to Australia and that they wouldn't put him under Sam's and can the US be trusted? No, of course they cannot be trusted and the past history shows that they cannot be trusted. And actually, if you read this so-called offer carefully, it entails, of course, the caveat that they retain the right to change their mind and actually put him under Sam's. Which by the way, it just strikes me that we should call it for what it is. Sam's or these special administrative measures are torture, it's solitary confinement and it's torture. So let's just call it for what it is. Let's not call torture and understand interrogation techniques or let's not call torture and solitary as Sam's. So this is the essence of that, it cannot be trusted. Furthermore, of course, the offer that he would, if sentenced to be able to serve in Australia is qualified as well because you cannot even ask for such transfer until you have exhausted all your appeals possibility in country. I mean, that could take 10, 20 years if you include the US Supreme Court. And I said, if sentenced, but we know for past history and John knows that as well, that there is not a single case that has been brought to the, that spy court as it is called the Eastern District of Virginia under espionage charges where the subject has not been found guilty. And so it's a certainty. And the solitary confinement, of course, it can be imposed by simple requests by the CIA, I am told. And the prison service will have to comply. And with the past history of the animosity of the CIA towards Wikileaks and Julian, especially after the 2017 revelations, the so-called World Seven, we know the atmosphere on that side. So of course, this is nothing but a public relation stunt to try to mislead and get the discussion on another track and away from the essence of this political case. And of course it is political. It is nothing but political persecution. And it is very sorry to say it can only be stopped by political interference after great pressure from individuals, from organizations and from members of parliaments in other countries. As we are seeing emerging all over the place, I just came from Germany, where a cross-party group in the Bundestag is urging Biden to drop the case. The same call out has come from a cross-party groups in Australia and in the United Kingdom. And in the last hour, a group of MPs in Iceland, a cross-party group of four parties in Iceland send a similar urging to the Biden administration. It has to be stopped and it can only be stopped on the political level. A political persecution has to be stopped by politicians. And what we have been hearing up till now from Secretary of State Blinken and the spokesperson for the White House that is claiming that they cannot or is the difficulty in politically intervening into the case of the DOJ. That is simply wrong. I mean, how do you stop this Trump's indictment which is political in nature unless you take a political step to stop it by claiming that and striking your children and saying this has to go on because it's a legal case is basically accepting this Trump legacy into the Biden era. And it is not acceptable and it is of growing concerns to more and more individuals and organizations all around the world that this has to be stopped. Well, Kristin, you say it's a publicity stunt by the DOJ to make this offer, but the High Court accepted this it seems as a reasonable offer in order for them to decide to give the US the right to appeal. They can only appeal the prison condition question and they are allowing them forward this offer. Doesn't that concern you? Well, they are allowing the Americans to make their case to have their day in court. It does not automatically include that they are evaluating the merits of the offer. And let's not forget that this was, the appeal was narrowed down from the requests of the Americans and they were for example, not allowed in the appeal process. And this is very important in the case of Julian. They were not allowed to question the testimony of the doctors who evaluated Julian Assange. They said, that is not a question for appeal. So that stands and is unchallenged. They were planning to go after vigorously after the professors and the distinguished members of the medical profession in the UK who made this evaluation and maintained that they were biased and they had come to the wrong conclusion. So that was not allowed. So that is an important aspect in the process as well. But I have to say as well, the simple fact of the matter that the high court would take six months plus one day to decide whether to allow the appeal or not is outrageous in my mind. I mean, in civil societies, when you have somebody on remand that puts on extra pressure on the judiciary to speed up the process. And it's just unacceptable and a human rights violation to take six months and a day to come to a decision whether an appeal is allowed or not. That is outrageous in my mind, but it's part of this entire saga that has gone on for years and years. It's law fair. It is using all tools possible to keep Julian out of deprived of liberty for as long as possible. John, you serve time in the US prison for so-called national security crime. First of all, can you explain to the audience exactly what Sam's are and tell us what you think about this US offer? Yes, Sam's are administrative units within prisons at several different levels. They're at the low security, medium security and maximum security levels. And they are meant to prohibit a prisoner from having contact with the outside world. So I was in something called a modified Sam, which meant that my phone calls were monitored in real time, that my incoming and outgoing mail was monitored. They would slit the envelopes open and read everything that I wrote or everything that was being written to me. I was not allowed to meet with journalists. I was not allowed to exchange emails with journalists. If I wanted to write a letter to a journalist, I had to smuggle it out through another prisoner, which I ended up doing routinely, but I had it easy. The kind of Sam that we're talking about that Julian would be exposed to is something that would be at a higher level prison, either a medium security or maximum security. When we talk about the DOJ promising that Julian wouldn't go to the Supermax, they're not doing him any favor. I mean, there are only two Supermax prisons in the United States. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't send him to a maximum security prison, which is just about as bad, right? You're in a six by nine foot room, 23 hours a day. You're allowed to take three showers a week. Your one hour a day of so-called exercise time is simply allowing you to go into a cage that's off your own cell and happens to be outside. It's literally a cage and you're allowed to walk in circles in this six by six foot area. It's essentially solitary confinement, even if they don't call it solitary confinement, but the Sam at that higher level prison is onerous. Joe, Julian would be prohibited from virtually any contact with the outside world. The way the Sam's are run now, if you're a Sam prisoner, you're only allowed one phone call a month. The phone call can only be to an attorney and visitors are restricted to one a month and it can only be an attorney or immediate family. Zero contact with the outside world otherwise and certainly no contact with journalists. So this is a way of, I'm not using this word lightly. It's a way of disappearing people. It's a way of saying that your ideas are so dangerous that they can't be exposed to the outside world. And that's not America, at least it's not supposed to be. So what we're talking about here would be a silencing and utter silencing of Julian Assange. And you're talking about a regular high security prison that those conditions you just mentioned, not the same. Just a regular high security prison. And let's look at another thing too. These promises that the DOJ ostensibly made to the British Appeals Court this past week, for example, that Julian wouldn't be put in solitary confinement unless he did something that warranted sending him to solitary confinement. Well, that could be literally anything. Listen, I was standing next to people who were then grabbed and sent to solitary confinement because they gave one of the guards a dirty look. So they can come up with an excuse in five seconds to send Julian to solitary confinement. Another example, they wouldn't send Julian to the Supermax. Well, one fight is gonna change that. If somebody shoves Julian and Julian shoves him back, they both go to solitary for six months until the guards can sort out the administrative paperwork of sending them to a prison that's at a higher security level. So these promises that DOJ made this past week are utterly hollow. And you've seen other examples of those kinds of hollow promises made? Literally every day, Joe, this kind of thing happens every single day. And one of the themes that I heard a lot when I was in prison was that the Bureau of Prisons answers to no one. I was supposed to be placed in a minimum security work camp. The judge ordered that I be placed in a minimum security work camp. And instead I was sent to a low security prison with the double fences and the concertina wire and the whole nine yards. And when I complained, they said that they were an independent bureau of the Department of Justice and they were not subject to judge's orders on administrative placement of prisoners. And so a judge can say that Julian Assange will not be sent to a maximum security prison and the Bureau of Prisons can tell the judge to go fly a kite. Alexander, I haven't worked at the Royal Courts of Justice. Give us your insights into the thinking of the High Court and granting this application for appeal to the United States. I think it's first of all, important to say that Kirsten's observation that this is only permission to appeal is absolutely right. It doesn't mean that the appeal is going to be allowed. The threshold for doing this is relatively speaking quite low. Now, I always assumed that because it was the United States that was appealing, the likelihood is that there would be an appeal, that they would permit an appeal. The fact that they took six months to do it is again, exactly as Kirsten said, completely outrageous and unbelievable violation of Julian Assange's human rights. But it also suggests that the High Court found itself in a very difficult position for themselves. They saw this as something of a hot potato. They didn't quite know what grounds of appeal to should be permitted to take it forward and that they struggled to make this decision. I was expecting a decision to be made within about a month, not six months. So that may be a good sign. I mean, one can't be certain, but it may be a good sign. Now, as for these grounds of appeal that we now hear about, I have to say that it seems to me that they face a fundamental objection. Obviously, as John said, these promises the US is making are unenforceable and as we've seen in the past, they're not to be relied upon anyway. But all of these promises, all of these assurances could have been made to Baritza at the trial and they weren't. Now, the Americans are saying that the US government is saying, well, this was because we were taken by surprise. We didn't expect all these issues to be brought up in this way. Now, of course, I don't take that seriously. I can't believe anybody would take that seriously. But if that were true, they had the option then of applying for a postponement. They say, well, you know, we need time to absorb all of this and come up with our responses and say what we want to say. Well, they didn't do that. On the contrary, they opposed every application for a postponement that the defense made. So I don't really see how this is going to hold together at the final appeal hearing. I think that they're going to have serious problems with this particular appeal. Now, to say an unusual case is an understatement, but desperate was how you describe these grounds of appeal at the beginning, or at least I think that's what you said. That's how they look to me. I think this is going to be extremely difficult come November. And if the High Court decides to allow the appeal and green light the extradition on the basis of these grounds of appeal, well, firstly, that would be disturbing and hopefully subjected to a further appeal to the Supreme Court. But it would also be an extraordinary attempt to push the envelope, to try to help the United States out of what is frankly a very difficult position legally. So I don't think we should put too much in the fact that they've been granted permission to appeal. And on the face of it, these grounds of appeal don't look at all strong. Alexander, I want to read you something that Craig Murray, the former British ambassador and blogger wrote back on January 6th, two days after Parate's decision, which in hindsight is extremely fascinating now that we know what we know. He wrote, quote, I am not sure that at this stage, the High Court would accept a new guarantee from the USA that Assange would not be kept in isolation or in a super max prison. That would be contrary to the affidavit from Assistant US Attorney Gordon Krumberg and thus would probably be ruled to amount to new evidence. So my understanding, Craig, from wrong, is that in an appeal, you cannot put forth new evidence. You can only go in the truck. So is this new evidence to this offer not to put him in super max is what Craig was suggesting back in January? It is new evidence. And that actually begs many questions about what the grounds of appeal that have been allowed actually are because of course, it is new evidence. I can't really see how you can come along and say, well, actually, this is what we're going to do. I wonder whether the real thing that's being looked at here, the sort of thin point that they're allowed to say is well, Baritza was wrong to go ahead and consider all this evidence about the prison conditions when we weren't given the opportunity to state our case that if we had been given that opportunity, we would have been able to say all of these things and all these problems that have been raised could have been allayed. So as I said, that comes up with a fundamental problem though that they could have sought a postponement and they didn't. And by, I would add making all these points about the prison conditions, say, well, actually we're not going to put him in a Sam's that's never been our plan. We might send him to Australia. We're prepared to do all of these things. Well, in a kind of a way, they're actually accepting that Baritza's decision on the evidence put to her about the prison conditions that she was told he might be sent to was correct. If it was correct, if it was that bad, then of course she was right and you can't appeal her because an appeal is when a judge gets it wrong not when a judge gets it right. I hope I explained it clearly, but it's because appeal is a bit of a strange creature but it doesn't look at all strong to me. And I wonder whether this isn't, as I said, more an attempt to give, as Kristen said, the Americans their day in court in order to get this thing out of the way. I mean, I hope so. If not, then as I said, it would be a very disturbing thing. Elizabeth, if you have any questions or if anybody on the panel wants to add something. Yeah, Kristen, I wanted to ask you, will Wikibwe continue to pursue its cross-appeal against the substance of Baritza's ruling in which he sided on virtually every point with the US government? Well, that is for the lawyers to decide after discussing the issue with the client, with Julian. And it has been indicated that later in the process a cross-appeal will be requested quite possibly on all the grounds that where Baritza did seem to side with the US government in the claim. And so, I mean, it simply hasn't been decided as far as I know yet. So it comes later in the procedure that hasn't been a case management hearing yet. So we haven't got the affirmed court date. We can expect the case management hearing probably in a five or 10 days time. So we know how things will progress. But my worry is basically that while this is dragging on and it's been dragging on for way too long, a man is suffering. A man is suffering in the maximum security prison in the UK, a non-violent individual whose only crime was to present the truth to the general public as journalists should do. So I worry for my friend there that is what I take away from this prolonged lawfare, which seems to me is deliberately being dragged on and on. Well, we'll let that be the last word. I want to thank Christian Happinson, David Killeek, Senator-in-Chief John Kiriakou, radio host, and Alexander McCuris, our legal analyst in London, Big Moundar in Iceland, the former Iceland TV minister. Thank you for staying with us. Viattomar, the journalist from Studentin whose article was rocked this story a couple of weeks ago. And I'll thank Elizabeth Voss, my co-host and Kathy Vogan, our producer. And for CN Live, this is Joel Louris saying goodbye and we'll see you next time. If you are a consumer of independent news in the first place you should be going to is Consortium News and please do try to support them when you can. It doesn't have its articles behind a paywall. It's free for everyone. It's one of the best news sites out there and it's been in the business of independent journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades. I hope that with the public's continuing support of Consortium News, it will continue for a very long time to come. Thank you so much.