 Ychydig iawn, yn fyddiwyr. Rwy'n gwybod yn ystafell â'u gweld i'r cyfathau, mae'n gydig, mae'n fyddwch yn fyddwch. Mae'n dweud am y cyfathau, mae'n dweud yn y dyma. Mae'n fyddwch yn fyddwch yn fwyaf, mae'n fyddwch yn fyddwch yn fyddiwch. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithiau i'r gweithio sy'n dweud yn ddweud, a yw dda, ym mwyaf fel y sylaf, mae'n dweud â'r gweithio, mae'n dweud am yn ymgyrchol. Mae'r ychydig yn olygu i'r gwaith yn ymdill, a maen nhw'n i gael llunio yma yn ysgrifennid yma. Mae'n gilydd o'r ystafell yma, oherwydd mae'n gallu'n gwneud o'r llwyr yma, ac mae'n ofyn ystafell yma yn ystafell. Mae'n llwyr yma, mae'n gilydd o'r ystafell. Ystafell yma, mae'n gilydd. OK, thank you. Thanks, Deborah. Thanks to FDA and XTU for coming. So I'm an investigative journalist that helped. I investigated journalists for the last 16 years, and I have never seen a case like this. I have spent 13 years on this case, of course, not just on this case in other cases. 13 year on this case. Why so many years? First of all I have worked on the Wicklicks documents from the very beginning even before the collateral murder. It was 2008 when Wanoma sources stopped talking to me. She was from this. She was an Italian source. Lindsey was looking for a legal firm. She had seen something really important. I don't know what. I have never known what she is doing because she stopped talking to me. She was convinced she was under illegal interception.た i'r digon intercep rounds. Fi'n amddangos y gallwch chi i chi'n dweud, mae'n ddweud o'r ddweud felly oedd yn mynd yn dweud. Felly, rwy'n meddwl ychydig yn mynd i'r ddefnyddio bobl 14 yma, nad yw yn dweud y gweithio yma, ond y gweithio'r dweud yn y dyna'r dyn nhw'n gweithio'r dyn nhw. Mae'r ddych chi'n dweud i gael ddyn nhw'n gweithio'r dyn nhw'n dyn nhw'n gweithio'r dyn nhw'n gweithio'r dyn nhw? gyda'r cyfnod o'r cyfnodau, ac yn fawr i'r cyfnodau cyfnodau, ac mae'r gynhyrch cerddwyd yn fawr, mae'r cyfnodau yn fawr i'r gyrdd. Ond, ychydig yn ymgyrch, mae'r cyfnodau, ychydig yn ymgyrch, mae'r cyfnodau eisiau ymgyrch yn fawr, mae'r cyfnodau eisiau yn fawr i'r cyfnodau. A'i gyrdd i'r cyfnodau eisiau, mae'r llyfr yn ddod y cyfnod, bo'r llyfr yn ymddangos i'r llyfr yn y cyfnod ar y cyfnod yn cyfnod yn y gymryd. Yn ymdyn nhw, mae'n gweithio'n cyfnod a'r Ymdyn Ysgolethau, yn ymdyn nhw'n cyfnod ymdyn nhw. A yn 2008-2009, y ddyn nhw'n cyfnod ymdyn nhw'n cyfnod yn cyfnod ymdyn nhw'n cyfnod. Mae nifer o ran gweithio mewn cyffredig yn cyfrifoedd ar gyfer drosfyniaeth penderfynedig. Nid o enwedig y Famelig iawn ar y Washington posyn, mae'r ffordd erbyn iawn yn gwneud osfyniaeth, mae'n gweithio'r ffordd ar gyfer bydd ar gweithi, ond yn gweithio ar y ddyfodol mae gennych g father Nghael, ac cyfrifoedd yn gallu ei hunain. Hwyl llawer yn cyd-ddiolio pgp ac mae'r cyd-ddiolio'r cyd-diolio ar y cyd-ddiolio a srwmddiadau. Gwydddoedd gyd-ddiolio ac gyd-ddiolio'r cyd-ddiolio. Gyd-ddiolio'r cyd-ddiolio'r cyd-ddiolio ar gyfer hynny o gyd-ddiolio, sy'n gyffredin cael ei ddysgu'r cyd-ddiolio ac mae'r cyd-ddiolio'r cyd-ddiolio. I started looking at them, and I was deeply impressed by the Olympics' work. They were able to get documents that no other media organisation could get, like the one time amount which the ACNU tried to get using the Freedom of Information using the Freedom of Information requests, and they were unable to get it. But I was not just impressed because they were able to get these documents. Llywodraeth ychydig, oherwydd, ei bod yn dod o'r llin. Rwyf wedi cyfnod y ysgrifennol, y phantagone yn hyn i ddeudu i'r lleol i'w ddweud i'r gyfnod. Yn ymgyrch o'r ffordd o'r llin ymgyrch ymgyrch yn ei dweud i'r phantagone. Mae oedd gennym yn unig o'r llin o'r llin o'r lleol i'r lleol i'r lleol i'r lleol i'r lleol i'r lleol i'r llin o'r lleol i'r phantagone. Felly, rwyf wedi'i gweithio'r cyflogwyr a'r ffordd ar gyfer y 911, ond allwch yn cerddau i'r Llundig, i'r CAA, i'r Cyfnodysgol, i'r Gymraeg, i'r Fentagon. Mae'r ffordd ar gyfer cyfnodwyr. Felly, rwyf wedi gweithio'r cyflogwyr. Rwyf wedi'u gweithio'r cysylltau i'r cysylltu. Rwyf wedi gweithio'r cyflogwyr i'r cyflogwyr. Rwyf wedi gweithio'r cyflogwyr i'r cyflogwyr. Afganfolawn, Syracfolawn, ond y cyfweld sy'n… ...y'r tyflau'r fawr o documentau. Rydym yn bod sianethefyd y 7. Rydym yn bod nesaf am all dyma. Felly wrth gwrs, esbyty â'r hyn ymwneud, dyfodd y fwrdd angen i'r angen i Julian Assangell, bydd e'n athrym mhag, er mwyn am 28 ym 10. 2010. Yn y defnyddio, nid oeddwn i'n gweld ymwneud hyn yw'r aelod. Nid oeddwn i hyn ar gyfer y rhan, rydyn ni'n fydda'r fath o'r ymwneud hyn yn fath o'r rhan, ond rydyn ni'n ganddill yn ei gweld ymwneud hyn. Yn y cerdd, nid oeddwn i'n gweld ymwneud hyn ymwneud hynny, ddiwethaf yn bwysig, yna'n bwysig i'r gweithio. Felly, yn ei gweld y gweithio, yn ddyn nhw'n gweithio'r 5 gwaith... ac yn oedd ymlaen ydyn nhw yn meddwl yn methu. Nod yw'r dweud, nod yw'r meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl, yn meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl. Mae'n meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl, yn ychydig yn meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl yn meddwl. rydych chi'n gwneud i'r hyfforddi gyfrofiad repl y teimlo yn ysgrifennu'r llygwyr wedi gynhyrchu yn ysgrifennu. Felly ymweldio'r hyfforddi'r Gweithredeg yn ysgrifennu'r llygwyr, am adriodd dylog ar hyfforddi'r ysgrifennu di'n arweith y tair. Mae'r llygwyr emhoedd y dyma, yn ysgrifennu'r llygwyr yn ysgrifennu'r llygwyr, mae'n ei wneud ei ddweud eich perchfyfrion ar y maes. Ac rydw i'n fydd yn gweithio'r llygwyr, I decided I want to get access to the documentation about this case, because I want to understand what is going on, I want to understand why it cannot regain freedom, why it cannot, why it is in the embassy, why it lost its freedom, you know, and inside. So I use the only, it doesn't tell the prosecutor to tell me you should try to discover why the Swedish prosecutors at the time was under investigation for alleged rape and sexual molestation in Sweden, and now this hyper-file Italian prosecutor told me it doesn't make sense to me that these guys don't want to go to London to question him and to decide whether to charge him for rape or whether to dismiss the case. You should try to discover this. So I had, as anything Italian investigative journalist, I had no sources inside the Swedish prosecution. So my only hope was to file an F2I request in Sweden and try to get access to this case. From the Swedish prosecution, precisely the authority which I put in under investigation for alleged rape and sexual molestation. I could have never imagined that the Swedish prosecutor would have to find a person who was under investigation for alleged rape and sexual molestation. I could have never imagined that this work would have completely absurdly for the last seven years, because in the last seven years I have been fighting to get this documentation from Sweden, from the UK, from the US, from Australia, from Sweden. from Sweden, from the UK, from the US, from Australia, and all these four governments denied me access to this documentation. But even if they denied, they kept denying me this documentation and my FY law years, they still together with Jennifer Robinson is representing me in the UK. I had several law years to try to get this document from Australia, US, Sweden, UK, Sweden, US and Australia. Several law years to get this document. I have reconstructed the old case, including this trench warfare. I call this because it's a real trench warfare in my book. What we have discovered, even if they have used all their legal sources to deny me documents, what we have discovered is really important. We discovered that it was basically the UK authorities at the Crown Prosecution Service, which have put pressure, which have basically advised Swedish prosecutors to not to question Julian Assange-Longan, so they have contributed to create this legal and diplomatic of mine. At that time, the Crown Prosecution Service was headed by Keel Summer, the current leader of Labour. We discovered that in 2013, even the Swedish prosecutor realized that this legal strategy had no exit inside, so they wanted to brought me this tradition proceeding. But the UK authorities at the Crown Prosecution Service were not in favour of this. We discovered that they destroyed the documents. The crucial documents about the case, the Crown Prosecution Service. You might say, why is Crown Prosecution Service today relevant? Is it relevant? Because this is the very same agency, public authority in charge of expedition to the US. The very same authority, which was in charge of the Swedish tradition because Julian was under investigation in Sweden, but he was in Longwood. So the Swedish prosecutors needed the cooperation, the legal cooperation from the Crown Prosecution Service. This Crown Prosecution Service is the very same authority in charge of the US expedition in these days, and they destroyed crucial documents about the case. We discovered this, and as I can tell you the legal technicalities and facts, we discovered this in 2017. We discovered this because they said, the Crown Prosecution Service said, we gave you all the documents we had about Sweden. I checked and realized that it was definitely not true because there were no respondents about Sweden and between Sweden and the UK. With those crucial weeks, what Julian Assange was, for example, took refuge in the embassy and asked for asylum. It was impossible, but in those weeks the UK authorities and the Swedish authorities had not exchanged any communication. So I discovered these gaps, and when I realized these gaps through my lawyers, I asked the Crown Prosecution Service, it's not true that you provided the full documentation. Could you give us the full correspondence, and they said, we destroyed it. So they destroyed the crucial documents about the case, and we don't know what exactly they destroyed. They claim they don't know what they destroyed, which is quite unbelievable. A public authority destroyed documents about an important legal case, which is highly controversial, which is highly profiled, and they don't know what they destroyed, why, on whose instruction, how they have refused in the last five years, we have tried, with my lawyers, to appeal and appeal and appeal, they have refused for the last five years to provide any answer on what they destroyed, why, on whose instruction. We don't even know precisely this destruction happened after Kirstarmer, or later, and why. In Sweden, when I tried to get the same documentation from Sweden, they said, these documents do not exist. And we said, with my Swedish lawyer, what are you saying? The Crown Prosecution Service stated that these documents exist before a judge, do you think they are lying to the judge? And they said, these documents do not exist. Then they changed and said, maybe these documents are no longer available. So, with my Swedish lawyer, we have the court, the kamarachten, which is a Swedish administrative court of appeal, where you cannot appeal an FY case. And we asked the kamarachten to ask the Swedish authorities to clarify why these documents are not available to them. And they refused. They said, these documents maybe do not exist, maybe they are destroyed, so maybe even Sweden destroyed key documents out of this case. When we went to the parliamentary, Swedish parliamentary ombudsman, trying to investigate these documents, whether they have destroyed them, the Swedish parliamentary ombudsman refused to open an investigation and refused to provide any explanation on whether these documents have been destroyed, whether these documents have been removed from any archive and they cannot find it. Sorry if I interrupt you, but it is very clear that you've had a huge pushback when you were trying to find the documents. But if I can ask you just to give us an idea, so this book reconstructs the pushback, but also reconstructs what you have found, right? Because you have not been able to access some documents, as you just explained, but what has made you then jump from that conclusion? You could not get the documents you need, and therefore there is a secret power at work. What made you go on to create this book? And what did you do with it? Actually, the book is about the whole case, because I have worked on all the documents, even from the very beginning, so I wanted to make people realise why Netflix is a unique media organisation. In the sense that many newspapers and media organisations publish secret documents, classified documents. This is what national security correspondents do all around the world from the Washington Post to the New York Times. What is unique about Netflix is that they haven't just published some classified documents or they just don't publish many classified documents. They have opened a game for what I call the secret power, the highest level of power, the power where diplomacy, state authorities, secret services move. And this secret power is very upset at journalists at Netflix. And what they want, the secret power, what I call the secret power, want journalists at death. Absolutely. And not just him, even the Netflix journalists, we discovered even information about involvement of British secret services, presumably MI5, in the investigation of three Netflix journalists, four men of current Netflix journalists. Sarah Harrison, Joseph Farrow and Christine Rassan, who is the co-editing editor. So the case is not just about Julian Assange, of course it is about him, because he has been literally destroyed, but it's not just about him. They want him dead, they want, they only have been destroyed and their own revolution, because they unleash a revolution in journalism. Whatever you think about Julian or Netflix, they unleash a revolution. And so the secret power, what I call the secret power, which is not a conspiratorial entity, you know, is the state authority, which uses secrecy, not to protect citizens. They use secrecy to protect state criminality, and to get impunity for these state crimes. And they reconstruct their whole revelation, providing these evidence of state criminality. And they have gambler logs to gambler logs to the cables in Guartano, and they construct the full revelations. So they want to kill him, and they just don't want just to kill him, they want to kill a revolution, so that the next students who get collateral murder or cables think twice, maybe three times, and say, I don't want to end up like him. I don't want to end up like him. You know, that is precisely what I was going to ask you. Do you think that there is therefore, or rating self-censorship by other journalists who are thinking twice or three times? I think so. I think so. I really wonder who will publish the next collateral murder or the next cable bit. The next cable bit, because you realize that your life is finished. You have to find an embassy, and then you end up in bloodmage. So you see the criminals who sleep peacefully in their beds with their children, where Stella and Gabrielle and Matt cannot see their father sleeping in their bed. So how a journalist can be encouraged to publish his life is destroyed. And this secret power, have you found that it's more one of these states? Is it more UK? Is it more US? Is it Sweden? Is it Australia? Is it widespread? Where is this secret power exactly? Which ones did you find out? Yeah, of course it is. US, UK, given the special relationship and the intelligence relations. That is so Sweden, Australia and the Allies. And of course, this is not just about the US. This is about, I mean, a Germanist who, a Russian Germanist or a North Korean Germanist or a Chinese Germanist and even a cable bit of collateral murder will be killed on the spot. You know, I don't believe that the secret power, you know, is ferocious just in US or UK. He would have been killed. I've done this in US, in China or Russia. However, you don't have to believe that this is less brutal. Because at the end of the day, you can bring a journalist dead, sending killers or bringing him on the brink of suicide as they have done. So this is more subtle what they have done to do that. They didn't send killers to kill him, like in Russia or China or North Korea. But at the end of the day, they have destroyed him. And we hope that we can get him out of that much. But we're not sure whether he's killed and whether he, in which conditions, he will come out. So what I want is that people realize that it's not safe not filling out democracies to expose state criminality at the highest level. Because they pay the price you have to pay. It's so high. They got the best hands of his life. They destroyed his health. They destroyed his freedom. And even if he comes out alive, I don't know whether he will be the same to an as I was after such destruction. So I want to tell you that, of course, in Russia it would be worse. In China it would be definitely worse. In North Korea it would be worse. But what they have done to him should get all of us upset. Because this is happening in Europe. This is happening in our democracies. And in our democracies you have to pay an unbearable price. And that's why it motivated me to work 13 years on this case. I want to help with my journalism to create a society in which you can reveal war crimes, you can reveal culture, and you can be safe. You don't have to ask for asylum to Russia, which is a scandal. I do happen at the end of the Cold War where people, dissidents, Russian dissidents were asking for asylum to Western democracy. Today we have no been asking for asylum to Russia. It's a complete scandal. It's an absolute scandal. I want to create a society where you can reveal war crimes, torture, mass surveillance. And you don't have to spend eight years in prison like Cheximani and try to commit suicide without us. You don't have to spend your life in Belmash. You don't have to ask for asylum to Russia. It must be possible. This is the difference between democracy and dictatorship. In them, in dictatorships you can do it. You cannot do it. They kill you. They can be killers. So I'm going to ask Kenya. She was killed in a democracy mass impossible. So unless we start or we put public pressure on the students, can we change this situation? No one will create a society like this for us. Thank you, Stefania. I think that will be a really, really powerful starting. I think I want to open to questions as soon as possible. But first I want to get you and to talk to us a little bit about the level of intrusion. There is a lot of interest at the moment in this case and in particular in this country. You have worked for many, many years at the Guardian. You probably know Julian Assange in your work. Why is it that this country, and of course the US, don't seem to have much interest at the moment in this case? Or in fact, ever? I can give a clear answer to that. The indifference in Britain and America is puzzled to me. The Assange case, as Stefania was saying, creates a terrible precedent for investigative journals that can have a thrilling effect on future investigations. And I assume that that's why the Americas will keep the prosecute Assange, not because of any wrongdoing involved in cable games or the Afghan war walks, but simply as a precedent for any future national security breaches. The indifference in Britain, a little bit of what I can understand. When he was working on the cable gates, he fell out with some Guardian staff and the relationships were pretty fraught and he fell out with other journalists too. So it was that personal element. Then came the Swedish, their likes, the rape charges. It was rough at that point. The allegations, that's from the British press, decided that they'd have to do anything more. But even though all that's been seen as something dropped, that indifference persists. You get occasional peace, maybe an editorial in the Guardian saying that this is a terrible precedent and extradition should be resisted, but on the whole we hear very little. And in America, I spoke to a very liberal lawyer in America and said, look, what do you think about Assange? He says, don't even mention it. And that's because of the WikiLeaks involvement with Hillary Clinton. So there's all these elements, but given the danger of a risk to investigative journalism, it's just wrong that Sunday a journalist and a publisher like Jo and Assange should be facing extradition to America. But with what Stefania says that she hasn't covered, and I'm sure with your help with Zell and all the FOI requests, the fact that there is such resistance here to look at what is happening is almost scandalous. I'd just like to say I'm pleased that Stefania has invited me to this panel and she's been a friend for a number of years as a journalist colleague. This is a terrific narrative of WikiLeaks. Followers of chronologically, she spoke to posted insiders, she said she's been involved in all the big cases. So it's a good read if you want to understand the background of it. On the specifics, the case that Stefania mentions about the missing emails from the Crown Prosecution Service, Stefania gave that to me as a calling for the Guardian on Bocock. We did a slash from the Guardian out of it. It was all Stefania's work. So I wouldn't pay credit. She's incredibly persistent. She pays a lot of this FOI work out of her own pocket. She's suffered as a consequence of pursuing this relentlessly. It's almost embarrassing that this is an Italian journalist rather than a British one pursuing this through the FOI. Just a final point, aren't you? The reason that these missing emails from the Crown Prosecution Service and Sweden matters is because the Crown Prosecution Service said we destroyed these because the lawyer or the official involved is retiring. When an official retired, we destroyed all the emails. This wasn't a run-of-the-mill case. This is a hard profile case. The idea that the Crown Prosecution Service would destroy these emails and that you can't get the corresponding emails from Sweden, something stinks here. So it's not going to go away. People will keep at it to try and get an answer. The idea that these emails can just disappear into the earth and no one knows about it. So I think that's for the stories going next. Before we open just a quick one from you yourself, have you ever met a similar case in your career as a lawyer? Have you ever seen such resistance to releasing any documents? What is your take as a lawyer on this? Yes, thank you very much. I'll say three things about what both Stefania and Hugh have said, just to clarify. I've worked on the Etholite cases, three main cases that Stefania has brought here in the United Kingdom. I've not ever worked on the Assange exhibition matters, so I can't really help you with that. I have seen cases where the United Kingdom public authorities have found it difficult to release information, and it's an open question, I think, although there's been some improvement, but it's an open question about whether our institution of RFLI legislation in 2000 did what it said it should do, i.e. lead to an idea of openness on the part of public authorities. I think we're still working on that. I'd like to say three things just to clarify about what's been said. First, about the nature of Stefania's FOI work. Second, about the CPS emails. And third, about what British journalism has been doing on this point. First, Stefania's FOI requests. She's made a number, I've worked on two cases to do with the CPS and one to do with the Metropolitan Police Service. In all instances, although Stefania, because she sees a bigger picture, takes the view that she hasn't really achieved very much in terms of release of those FOI requests, she has in fact obtained material. So she has obtained material in correspondence between the Crime Prosecution Service and the Swedish Prosecution Authority, and that's what gave rise to the questions that still have to be answered, including emails being deleted. Second, she obtained a statement from the Metropolitan Police that they held correspondence with the U.S. Department of Justice about the three named Wicked Externals, i.e. Christopher Crapins and Joseph Fowler and Sarah Harrison. Nothing has been released about that, I don't want to say something about that in a second, but she obtained the acceptance that that correspondence was held, which means that there was involvement. And she has obtained the way in which the authorities have then responded to providing the substantive information. So, something has been achieved. I think kept, I think had, because our connection has secured well, I'll get that. Then, second, on the Crime Prosecution Service emails. There were some emails that were released relating to the main individual in the Crime Prosecution Service who had oversight of the Assange Exhibition matter. But it was clear that there was missing emails and then it was released to us that those emails had been deleted. Secondly, in 2017-18, the Crime Prosecution Service said they deleted it according to their attention policy. They provided us with attention policy. The retention policy said that you should retain emails for five years from the last date of important correspondence. Later on, when we challenged again in relation to the deletion, they said no, they were deleted three months after the individual retired and then they came and that was the correct deletion policy. So our appeal, which will be held next year, will be exploring why that narrative changed. Second, we asked for information about the deletion logs and about any information about why the information was deleted and we asked for technical information and that said it also held. So we're asking for some clarification on that. There has been nothing that has been released to us and I should clarify this that has ever indicated that Kirsten had any knowledge or involvement in this matter. Third, in relation to what they did, they used to provide the explanation of who. And we don't know whether Kirsten's new wedding was involved with the law. And then third, in relation to the Metropolitan Police Service FYI request. Once it became clear that information was held in relation to these journalists, the Metropolitan Police refused to provide. And they relied on the terrorism exemption, on the national security exemption and on the crime exemption. And the National Union of Journalists in this country and in other countries, but in this country in particular, when it became aware that the terrorism exemption was being relied on, to withhold information about the Metropolitan Police potentially investigating journalists for their journalism became involved in the FAI appeal. And they put forward a written statement, which I can provide if you're interested, about the chilling effect that that has on proper journalism and about how national security journalism is not terrorism and journalists must be permitted to investigate national security matters without being subject to the rules that are in place to protect against terrorism. Thank you very much for that, very clear. So it's now over to all of you. If you want to just raise your hand if you've got a question and remind us, leave work with and go with the question if you shall. Sorry. All right, I have some consulting news. You made some freedom of information requests to the American administrative tribunal, which were refused, understand? You said what you were looking for there. I understand you made some requests to the American administrative, sorry, the Australian administrative tribunal that were refused. Is that right? I'm not sure I understand the question. So what Australian materials will you see playing for the Australian authorities? Australian authorities refuse saying that the release of these documents would damage Australian relationship, foreign relationship or would compromise information given to Australian authorities, precisely to the foreign ministry on a confidential base. So they refuse to provide important things with it. I was looking for, that's the interesting thing. I was looking for the correspondence between the Australian foreign ministry and the US State Department and the UK foreign office. And they refuse saying we cannot release the, so they have important correspondence because for example, immediately they consulted with the US authorities, precisely in those months after the bold set of publication which made this CIA furious, they consulted with the US authorities. But they refuse to provide on the basis that these correspondence if release would destroy the foreign relationship. Thank you very much. Is that good enough excuse to not to release information? So I'm not familiar with the internet of Australian FOI law, but I know that it is similar to our FOI. And there is an exemption which allows the public authority to refuse to provide the information if it will demonstrably harm diplomatic relationships. But there has to be evidence that the harm will be at the diplomatic level. So for example, in the first Crown Prosecution Service matter, there's finally looking for the information held between the CPS and the SBA, the CPS and the Ecuadorian Embassy and the CPS and the US authorities. There was some initial reliance on this diplomatic exemption. But because we challenged it, that was withdrawn because there was no evidence for that information about an impact at the diplomatic level on those sorts of relationships. It may be different if the correspondence is actually at the diplomatic level, but I don't know whether that was the case. Yes, the Australian authorities didn't provide any rationale, any evidence that if release this correspondence would damage their foreign relationships. And when I ask to my Australian FOI lawyers, do we need evidence because in UK to use this exemption, the foreign office has to provide and the Crown Prosecution Service have to provide evidence. My lawyers told me now this is an absolute exemption, so they don't have to provide any evidence. Catherine. Catherine English from Benra. Catherine. Catherine English from the Swiss radio. I heard about Jessie many, she got a grace from her President Obama. Does that mean that President Obama is not popular in secret power? Is there a difference between the president and the United States? Do you want to do it by me? I've been working for a while and I was there during Chelsea Manning and Obama, but I can't give you the answer. I'm assuming it was done in compassionate grounds. There is some suggestion that Obama might also give a pardon to it, but the intelligence agencies certainly thought that. I assume they would probably do the same in the case of Assange, unless it was compassionate grounds again. But does that mean that they see Assange as a bigger threat than Chelsea's Manning? How can it explain the difference of treatment? The one Americans are scared of and the British are scared of is another whistleblower. So the intelligence agencies will do whatever they can to try to sway the whistleblowers. If you give something like Chelsea Manning and then the compassionate grounds, you leave that aside. But WikiLeaks was seen as actively seeking secret documents. That's what was scared of organisations like WikiLeaks. So you can see the level of documentation that we saw on Cairo Gates. I've got Warlocks in Iraq, Warlocks. They were secret documents. So if Assange ends up, as he probably will, back in the States, then he's facing anything from decades in jail. He'll be trying on in the SP and I've act and could be anything from 20 to over 100 years. It was stolen that the category of secret documents is way above what was revealed by WikiLeaks. So in case it was stolen, the chance of a partner or compassion, if he ends up back in America, then he'll be totally hammered. He's looking at the lifetime in jail. Radio. Just to get it clearer. Sorry, I'm Christine Heuer. I'm working for a German National Public Radio. Just to understand that. I got why you got suspicious and I understand why your conclusion is plausible. Still, do you have any positive proof of your thesis? Which thesis? Because I think that there's a secret power that wants to kill Julian Assange. Of course. The evidence is what has happened in the last three years. He has never known freedom again. I understood you will never be doing it and they have destroyed it, so please destroy it. If you read the psychiatric assessment, the doctor's assessment, you realize how devastating the impact has been. So I mean the evidence is under our eyes. We just have to put things together and it's very easy to connect the dots. It's not that they want to destroy. They have destroyed him. They have destroyed him. They have destroyed Charles Melny. She spent eight years in prison. She tried to commit suicide three times and probably Obama commuted their sentence because if she had succeeded in killing herself, the impact on Obama legacy would have been pretty bad. I think it was something... There are differences between presidents. Obama didn't charge Julian from the charging, so there are differences. But when it comes to national security, what they say is national security, they are all very serious. This is not national security. If you read my books, you realize that the revelations are nothing about national security. These are about state reality. These are about the CIA coming to Milan and kidnapping a man in the middle of the day, as if it was children, you know. And they use secrecy to bring impunity to the CIA. And only thanks to the WikiLeaks documents we got information because our prosecutors were fantastic. They immediately got final sentences for the CIA people. But the CIA people didn't spend a day in prison. And we couldn't imagine, of course, the pressure from the US authorities on the Italian politicians not to extract the CIA people and put them in jail. But only thanks to the WikiLeaks documents we got evidence of this pressure, we got the full correspondence. So they protected this correspondence in the US department's cables using national security. This is not national security. This is protecting state criminality and to get impunity for the state authorities which are involved in these serious crimes. So they are using national security as a shield for the criminality. And that's why we think it's so important because we have a country, Italy's a country where we have horrible massacres due to the strategy of tension, a train blowing up. And the family still comes to me and we never have these WikiLeaks releases. Please look at the database if you find something. Because even if our wonderful prosecutors are investigating, even if the judges are investigating their excellent work, we still don't have it. So since the years after they look for the truth and they cannot get it, whereas when WikiLeaks came out we got these evidence in the documents. That's why they are so upset, so mad at Julia and WikiLeaks. They are so mad because they cannot shield their state criminality efficiently as they have done for them. I just wanted to follow up to my colleague. And I think also maybe what you meant as well is are you looking for a particular smoking gun in these documents that have not been released? Because I'm going to say the evidence is under our eyes that you are joining dots without proof that the secret power A exists, B wanted to kill a subject or destroy him. You can say, of course it's obvious, but between saying it's obvious and this research for documents you must be looking for something. What is it? So first of all the secret power absolutely exists and we have evidence any day. Because as I said in the case of Disneyland Paris, it was came after one of the famous CIA rendition. It was done by the CIA and it was done in the middle of the day. And even if our prosecutors named all of them and got final sentences, they never spent a day in prison. They sleep in their bed peacefully when a Stella and her children can only be seen doing an assignment very much. So you realize that this level of power is untouchable. You can have the best prosecutors, you can have the best judges, the most independent judges, but they are untouchable. They haven't spent a single day in prison. No one touches them. So this power is about the smoking gun. The reason why they don't, they don't want to realize this documentation is precisely because there is a smoking gun. And some bits of this smoking gun we got it as a spell told it. You know, the pressure on the Swedish prosecutors which basically have created this code mind, the legal and diplomatic code mind which have kept Julian Assange trapped in London since 2010. Is that, is it this beautiful, if you read these documents by the CIA which we had obtained after years of litigation, is that, you know, they were done because these people stick right these documents, that they will never be released. They, they haven't realized that we are in the four FY ages. You know, and these documents might be released on the four FY. So they seem to downpicks the documents. That's why they don't want to release documents because these documents do contain the smoking gun. The political pressure to keep Julian in London, the political pressure to influence the Swedish case, because as I said, it didn't make sense. I have worked on many crimes, many, I have seen prosecutors, you know, investigating criminal cases and I have never seen criminal cases like that. That's what made me to ask the FY documents to Sweden. So these documents are very mild. That's why they all precisely because they contain the smoking gun. There was a question down there. Do you still have one? Yes, these documents are a legal case of how to hold in society and social stories. First of all, I'd like to congratulate Stephanie on her action in the maximum and the most critical book. I enjoyed reading it. I have a couple of questions for Julian and Esel. My questions are, Governments are now classifying criminal non-reparation acts and using the classification process to hide criminality. They are renaming journalism as espionage and spying on journalists by calling them non-state hostile attendance agencies. And then they are destroying evidence for accountability like the Freedom of Information Act, as Stephanie has explained. What, as a journalist, as a lawyer, what do you see as the kind of response that the journalists in legal communities can make in respect of this, because it feels like it's a losing battle, especially when, for example, you say it's down, but we have no evidence against that. And obviously at the head of the TVP and at the head of the CBS, we expect he's not counting paper clips. He's aware of the most important case around his space. But there is no evidence in the public domain, as you rightly say. So could you tell us a little bit more about how to derive accountability at this time? Can I start? It's the case that it is difficult when making a Freedom of Information request, because what recognises there will be reliance on exemptions, it will take a long time, it is not a quick process. But my experience has taught me with a number of times that actually you never know what will shape you. And it is always worthwhile making the request, following up the request, making me feel to the Information Commissioner and appealing to the public going before my last. Because at each stage, and this is what happened with Spanish requests, at each stage something shakes me, and that is incredibly worthwhile. So although it may not be what it was hoped, i.e. a very significant and open culture of provisional information, the Freedom of Information regime is still working to bring things out into the public domain, even though it takes much longer than it should, and is a more difficult process. So I say stick with it, because things will come even though you don't expect them to. Sorry. Oh sorry. She's good online, thank you very much. Since the right war logs, after war logs, Cablegate, Snowton, we've seen increasing in conflated journalism and espionage. I think it was 2015 and 2016, the US passed legislation putting an end to mass surveillance of telephone, but not females or anything else. I mean that was a positive step in Britain, since WikiLeaks and Snowton, we've gone the other way. It's become increasingly more oppressive. The supers chapter that became law, I can't remember 2015, 2016, that all I did was legalise what the legalities that had been practicing beforehand, and since then legislation has been proposed to bring through just now, removing the public interest argument, treating journalists and spies as the same. Just one personal example, after Snowton I was put on the watch list and things, which I don't mind, that was pretty minor, but the Met Office launched an investigation into the journalists involved in Snowton under a kind of terrorism legislation. I don't mind if they launched an investigation, but there's no way it was a terrorist act. So I've got a bit totally pessimistic about where the legislation is going. It is also very disquieting work we experienced. We experienced kind of interrogation yet for others experienced scheduled 7, like Miranda experienced scheduled 7. Well, it's basically anti-terrorism legislation. And then playing Greenwood's partner, David Miranda, he throws under the terrorism legislation. And we experienced also special checks at the airport. We were spied, my fonts were off and screwed inside the embassy secretly. Fortunately, we got evidence because people who did this, presumably, on the CIA, they have two pictures. So, however, we got pictures and videos of these spy activities. So we identified another colleagues and, of course, Julian Assange, and then Felix Julian's, we filed criminal complaints in order to have an investigation on these spy activities. This is the kind of things you'd expect in a terrorist state, this kind of spy activities against journalists. But it happened here, in London, in the heart of Europe. So all these facts and all the use of national security anti-terrorism laws in this investigation depict a very sinister, very, you know, it should be of serious concern. This is not happening in Russia, this is not happening in China, this is happening here, now. Unless we wake up and stop this extradition and we stop and we assert the importance of journalism, investigating state criminalism at the highest level, it will be very bad for our journalism, for the right of the public to know, because this is not just about us. This is about the right of the public to know state criminalism at the highest level. As I said, it's not a conspiracy. Secret power, you can call it the national security statement, you can call it as you want. I call it secret power because it uses secrecy to protect state criminality, not to protect the security of citizens. This is really, really important to understand. They use secrecy classified documents to protect CIA kidnapping a person in the middle of the day in Milan. Kidnapping a person in a German citizen, Hal Adel Masry. They use secrecy for nothing, which has nothing to do with protecting citizens, of course. Juan, do you have a question? Yeah, Juan has an answer later. I just want to add to your question. I mean, if you just scratch on the surface of what you just said, there is irregularity after irregularity, ending with, you know, him being spotted with his lawyers meetings. Well, Mike Pompeo, and even Trump are asking for plans to assassinate him, plans to kidnap him. So, I mean, the secret power is absolutely there. You just have to really just scratch the surface. But I had a question for ourselves on the FY of Kristen Stennan Joseph. We know the Met Police was in contact with the DOJ about these three individuals on terrorism, national security and criminal act. What can be said from that word? Was the Met Police investigating them or spying on them on behalf of the DOJ? There's no charges for them in the United States or at least no charges that have been opened. These were two British journalists, a European journalist, and there's terribly scary acts of terrorism and national security acts for their work. I mean, can it be said that the Met Police was investigating them or spying on them on behalf of the foreign government? We don't know because the documents we are releasing. So, let me be absolutely clear. We do not know the content of any of the correspondence between the Metropolitan Police and the US State Department. All that we know is that when the Metropolitan Police resisted releasing that information, they relied on the exemption connected with terrorism and the exemption connected with national security. And indeed, it was the national security exemption that became the focus of the appeal and was the basis on which the Metropolitan Police was successful in the first year tribunal, in resisting release of those documents. But that is all we know. We have no idea what's in the documents and it seems that never will. And what part of the national security exemption was, I mean, why are they relying on that? You have put your finger on the great conundrum of freedom of information. So, the Metropolitan Police had to explain to the information commissioner and then to the first year tribunal why they were relying on the national security exemption. As the appellant and the requester, what Safania was told was minimal because, as it goes, if the full explanation was provided to her about why they were relying on national security, it would expose information about what was held and that was the whole point of it being resisted or being withheld. So, it's very difficult for us to understand the evidence behind why the national security exemption was relied on and why it was accepted. All we know is that there is evidence and it was provided to the tribunal and that they found that it made out the case for the Metropolitan Police, but we can know nothing further. All we can, though, know is that the documents exist. And the counterterrorism centre is involved? Yes, so the evidence that was provided by the Metropolitan Police was provided on behalf of the counterterrorism part of the Metropolitan Police and they relied on the fact that the counterterrorism officers and the secret services are very integrated and they work a lot together. As a basis, although we don't know the full explanation, but as a basis for why national security was involved. So, we're coming to the end of the session. If you have any question that is burning, please put your hand up and I do. So, Safania, like me, you're Italian. We can say a lot of things about Julian Assange, but he's not. He's being, you know, maybe persecuted is a strong word, but from all the free space. What is it that keeps you so attached to this case and who helps you with the investment needed to have all these lawyers and to fight all these fights? Thank you for this question. So, first of all, I'm absolutely determined to win this case. It's clear where I stand. I want to win this case. Now, first of all, for Julian Assange and his journalism as a matter of solidarity, because I have published the very same documents for over a decade and I was never arrested, I was never put in prison. So, I'm now generally set that I'm free, I'm safe, whereas he has basically lost over a decade of his life and probably he will end up in prison for life. It's like you go out with a colleague to do an investigation and he falls off a cliff and you abandon him. You don't do it. You try to ask for help. You try to mobilise people to help you to save him. You don't abandon a colleague. It's a matter of human decency before the ethical stance. It's a matter of human decency. In addition, I'm absolutely convinced that this case is crucial, because if in all democracies and state authorities can destroy a journalist for revealing war crimes and torture, well, we are no longer a democracy. So, it doesn't matter that they didn't send killers to kill Julian Assange. As a matter of fact, they are killing him. So, it's not that they will kill, they will destroy. They have already done it. So, I cannot accept that in all democracies they can do this. If we look at our society, it has changed a lot. Look at the women's rights. It has changed because passionate people, journalists, intellectuals, filmmakers, activists, have imposed a change. Our society was much more brutal in retrospect. We didn't have women's rights. We didn't have a lot of rights. And we got them. Not as a miracle, but because people struggled to get them. So, I want to struggle to create a society in which you can believe war crimes and you are safe. You are because peacefully you're bad, nothing very much. So, I'm very determined. Especially as a country, our country has a dark history. Much of our country is in the dark. We are country, right? We are the secret power of the act, which impunially, you know, we have these massacres during this time of tension. We still have families coming to us asking, could you please hand it to us? Could you please get some kind of information? They don't accept the rules. It's a human rights to have a closure. Mr Banya, in terms of the investment needed for you to keep going? It's a big, it's very complex because I had to be a manifesto. You have to lie, I was working for like a publican, a major inspector. So, I think it was possible. I worked for like a publican in this case and I was supported by a manifesto. But then they stopped. The second point stopped. I don't know why, the Victorian line changed a lot and things started going badly, very badly in 2017. We later discovered that the CIA was, in those days, the CIA was furious and I always asked myself whether there was a pressure on editors, whether I didn't. In any case, minus I left my newspaper and it has been really hard because I wanted to keep doing this work, of course not just this work or my usual journalistic work, but especially this work. I care a lot about this work. And I joined another newspaper in fact, a quotidiana, I was forced to get another newspaper. And to support this work has been very, very hard. Initially I paid myself for the legal fees, but at a certain point I could not support the legal costs. So, I asked for a grant for investigative journalism and I got some of these legal costs covered. Not my work, but just the legal fees. Who has a grant? Grant is the Logan Foundation, a U.S. Foundation, which basically supports hard work, investigative journalism, important investigative journalism. So, I was very lucky and in the U.S. I found a good lawyer working completely for Bono because the legal fees in the U.S. are now something around $100,000 to get it. I tried to get the lease and the U.S. government, the U.S. State Department, I sued this U.S. State Department. By the way, I got some full documents which contain some important information like the behind the scene meeting with the New York Times, the Guardian, comments by Alec Ross, who was a senior adviser for Hila the Clinton Innovation, and he was really upset because half of the posts considered to be a hero. So Alec Ross was really upset about this, but I only got full documents from the U.S. and I have been investigating the State Department for the last two years and every month they give me something like, from 20 to 100 pages, completely redacted, completely wired. So, you know, they give me all these completely redacted. For the last two years, every month they give me completely redacted stuff. Now that the costs in the U.S. are reaching over $100,000, so it's fortunately found a lofher which is willing to work for Bono. They have also worked for the Washington Post. They have worked on the lease of the Afghan takers. This is also important that you have to be able to find lawyers who are passionate like Stell, Jennifer, the Australian lawyers, the U.S. lawyers who are willing to work at reduced fees or fees for Bono. Because, otherwise, I cannot ask my editor $100,000. They say, oh, we cannot do it. I mean, they simply cannot do it, you know. Okay, thank you so much for this. It's quite heroic what you're doing so fine here. And thank you very much, you and Anderson, for being with us and Stella, for arriving and hearing about all that from the back. Thank you all for coming today and please take a copy of the book before you leave. It's not heroic. I think this is what Germany should be. I mean, I think it should be of inner Germanism. It's not just pretty news, as Pulitzer said. You know, it's not just merely pretty news. We cannot accept that our Germans who have been working and spent 12 years in these conditions, and no one tried to find the truth. I mean, is that Germanism? You know, we have to work on this case.