 Welcome to CN Live, the resume coverage of Julian Assange's extradition hearing. I'm Joe Lawyer, the editor-in-chief of Consorting News. It was a bad day for Julian Assange and his defense team at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Two judges there sided with the United States to allow them to challenge findings on Julian Assange's mental health that led to his extradition being rejected by District Judge Enelts of the Rates on January 4th. The U.S. said at that time that it would appeal. That was the Trump administration that made that decision to appeal. And here today, the lawyers in the courtroom for the United States are being directed by Department of Justice officials of the Biden administration, which is continuing their attempts to get Assange extradited to the United States. Now, while that January 4th decision was made seven months ago by the Rates to not extradite Assange, it took until July 5th for the High Court to finally respond to that U.S. application for appeal. And the U.S. was granted leave for appeal on three of the five grounds that they had asked for, but crucially not on the health grounds. And that was the key issue that allowed Vanessa Barreza to block the extradition of Julian Assange. The U.S. asked for this hearing today to challenge that decision. That they were not allowed to appeal the health decision of Barreza. They specifically, the U.S. are seeking to throw out testimony by Professor Michael Koppelman, an expert on suicide, because they say the U.S. said he concealed from Barreza some information that he should have revealed under his duty as an expert witness during the September 2020 extradition hearing. Barreza, for her part in her ruling on January 4th, agreed that Koppelman had concealed some information from her, but said that this information was understandable. It was understandable that he would have held that and that it was humanly understandable because of his desire to protect the interests and the safety of Stella Morris and the children that she's had with Julian Assange. We'll say more about that later. So the judges decided with the U.S. today to allow the United States to challenge this health argument, which they had initially been denied. And the judge set to 27th of October and the 28th of October this year as the substantive hearing on Assange's extradition appeal by the United States. Now the U.S. was represented by Claire Dobbin, a Northern Irish barrister who appeared in the courtroom in September in that extradition hearing. She started out by setting out and we're going to hear more of this in the substantial hearing, of course, in October, but she already tried to undercut the idea that Assange has any mental health problems at all. She tried to say that he was able to negotiate his asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy and that he ran a chat show from there with Russia today. She didn't say RT, which is its current name. She made sure to say Russia today. He tried to help Snowden. He did help Snowden escape from Hong Kong. And all of this proves she said that Assange is certainly not a man suffering from mental problems. Well, her argument is that a compliment concealed this knowledge that he had at the time when he first testified in his first report to the extradition hearing that Julian Assange had had two children with Stella Morris. Now, the U.S. says they didn't know that and they only found out about that in a second report from compliment who argued that he sought legal advice from the Assange team in order to protect Stella Morris and the children. And we'll get into that in a moment. What the threat was to them. Claire Dobbin said that that the admission by compliment quote misses the mark. It doesn't get to the guts of why he was willing to subjugate his duty to the court, to the interests of the Assange family who is willing to mislead in the first report to protect those interests. She said it was the U.S. submission that Koppelman was willing to mislead Vanessa Baraitza and signed the experts declaration of honesty when he ought not to have done. And Dobbin said that Baraitza should have interrogated why she was being misled by Koppelman. But in her ruling on January 4th, Baraitza wrote that she agreed that, in fact, Koppelman did mislead her about concealing this information about Stella Morris and the children. But she said it was understandable given the predicament Stella Morris was in and the children were in. She said it was a human decision to withhold that information. And she said Baraitza that she found Koppelman to be an impartial witness in the end, but the U.S. wants that testimony of Koppelman upon which the ruling not to extradite Assange was based. That and the conditions of U.S. prisons it was essentially the ruling of Koppelman's testimony was the strongest part of Baraitza's decision not to extradite because of his high risk of suicide. Now, Dobbin says that saying it was human is inadequate. What does that mean? It should have led to more exacting examination of his evidence. How can it be said that he wasn't misleading on other points in his testimony? The overall impression is that the judge thought this was a relatively minor matter. It's the duty of expert witnesses that it does not mislead the court. Why is this important? Because the United States is saying that Assange told Koppelman at one point that he probably wouldn't commit suicide because of his children. So the United States not knowing about these other children or they knew that there were children. They didn't know who the mother was. They didn't know when these children were born. It is, in my view, and you'll hear from Fitzgerald, the attorney for Assange, that it was, in fact, could be seen very much as a minor issue. Fitzgerald said that Koppelman hadn't failed in his duty to the court and that Baraitza formulated that he was not giving a biased opinion in his expertise, that she fully accepted that he omitted to mention the relationship in the first report. She posed the question whether this is an objective, an unbiased opinion, and Baraitza says that she, indeed, Koppelman did not fail to give an objective opinion. She wrote, Baraitza, that Koppelman's testimony was impartial. I was given no reason to doubt his evidence. Fitzgerald said that Baraitza concluded that he was indeed an impartial and objective witness and that Professor Koppelman explained he was very concerned that the exposure of the name of Julian Assange's partner would have an effect on the safety of the family. And he consulted with the defense, whether it was appropriate to not disclose her name, and that was a decision that was deferred until after further advice was given to him. So he admits that he withheld that knowledge. The name of Stella Morris as the name of the partner and the mother of the children that she had with Assange. But that this was done to protect the safety of Stella Morris. And that's where it's important to bring out the testimony of Gareth Pierce that she referred to during the expedition here. And Pierce told the court about how a US agency, probably the CIA, contracted with UC Global in Spain, not only to spy on Assange in the Embassy of Ecuador, but there was also a discussion of perhaps poisoning or kidnapping him. And they actually stole some of the diapers or the nappies of the children to get the DNA to prove that it was, in fact, Assange's child. So given that knowledge that Koppelman had, that the defense had, it was completely understandable, even in the eyes of Vanessa Barreza that that testimony of Koppelman, even when he excluded the name of Stella Morris was acceptable to protect her defense. But based on that, just the fact that he didn't name Stella Morris for these convincing reasons, convincing to Barreza, the US wants to throw out all of Koppelman's testimony, which could collapse the health argument, which would end the ban on extradition that Barreza put. So the High Court decided that the US could challenge the health issue. And this is why this was such a seriously bad day for Julian Assange. Because this doesn't mean that they will win the US. It only means they're allowed to argue this, obviously. So they still need to have this hearing on the 27th and 28th. But the US will be able to try to chip away and undermine and defeat, ultimately, if they can, the testimony of Koppelman and the decision by Vanessa Barreza in the district court to not extradite Julian Assange. The judge, Holly Rood, said that Koppelman should have been aware that he could appeal to the court and he didn't decide to tell the court that he hadn't given the name of Stella Morris up. And he essentially said that there was an incorrect approach by Vanessa Barreza, the district judge, and that she aired in in the fact that she accepted Koppelman's behavior, which was not in accordance with his duty. What Holly Rood did was read what every expert witness has to swear to that they will tell the truth. And yes, he did not tell the truth by cause of a very serious reason to protect the safety of Stella Morris and the children. And that apparently wasn't enough for the judge today. And he allowed this argument to go forward. And again, that appeal will be on the 27th and 28th of. October. Now, something unusual happened at the end of the hearing. One other thing, Holly Rood would not allow the cross appeal. There's a lot of talk about cross appeal. That means that the defense would argue that even on the points of law that were not included as a reason for not extraditing Assange, that is, all of the arguments about the Espionage Act and what it has done to journalism and whether journalism was being committed by Assange and why he was being charged with espionage on that, but reach agree with the United States completely. So there had been talk amongst supporters of Assange that the defense would make a cross appeal so that they, even though they, that was not part of the final judgment, even though they'd lost basically that part of the judgment, but won the case up to that point of not being extradited, they would try to challenge that. But Holly Rood said the judge today that he would not permit this. So if it goes to another court after the High Court, which are most likely will, whichever side loses will probably appeal to the Supreme Court, then I might come into play then. But at the very end, there was an open microphone and Fitzgerald was Assange's lawyer was very much aware of that. But he wanted to speak to his client. They took Assange out of his room. We could see him on the screen, looking quite despondent, sitting on a couch, watching these proceedings and seeing that the United States had won this battle today. Certainly is a long way to go in this case. But today, the U.S. did win. And afterward, Fitzgerald wanted to speak to Assange. And we happen to hear it now. Of course, this is attorney, client privilege. No one should listen in, which is what the United States did with the Spanish company, listened into lawyers' discussions with Assange. But basically, they said Fitzgerald told Assange, basically tried to cheer him up, saying that this is only one step in this road is a long way to go. At least, he knows a lot of the U.S. case was outlined today, what their argument is going to be. And that'll help him to proceed to prepare his case. So this is how it ended today with Assange and his lawyers having to speak on an open mic with several journalists still online, including me, to listen to this conversation that underscores how difficult it's been for his counsel to discuss with him his own case throughout this entire ordeal for Julian Assange. So to sum up, the United States has won a small step today. They are being allowed to argue the health grounds on which the expedition to the United States of Julian Assange was denied on January 4th by district judge, Vanessa Baraitza. She had based it on the fact of Assange's high risk of suicide and the conditions of U.S. prisons. The U.S. on July 5th was allowed to appeal, but not allowed to appeal the health part of that decision. They appealed that decision, and today they won. They will be allowed to argue that in court. The judge, the body language of the judge during the presentation where both sides indicated to me that he would side with the U.S. Now, why do I say that? Because he was pretty much giving full attention to Claire Dobbin when she gave the U.S. side of the story. But during Fitzgerald's presentation of Assange's case, why they should not argue the health issue in the appeal. He was tapping his pen and looking around the room and seemed very annoyed and distracted. Let's put it that way. And in fact, he clearly sided with the U.S. today. And again, that doesn't mean any indication of how the hearing itself will take place, but they have a broader argument now. The United States, they can challenge compliments testimony, but it's only a two day hearing. And even the U.S. side and the Assange side both wanted four days, it seemed like. That's what they asked for. But this judge thought it could be done in Hollywood in two. So as Fitzgerald said, it's a lot to shoehorn into two days, especially if they're going to have to go over the testimony again of both sides on the health issue, because of course, the U.S. had their own experts, psychiatrists. One of them was Nigel Blackwood and we republished on consortium news this morning, an article about his ties to the U.S. and British military. And he had said that Assange's mental disorder or suicidal feelings were manageable. And Lewis, the prosecutor went as far as saying Assange was a malingerer. So that whole issue of Assange's health will be reopened again in a two day hearing. And the other issue is the condition of U.S. prisons and the U.S. made assurances that they would not send him to Sam's, but they did. Put a caveat in there that in case Assange does something, then they could put him in there. So it's not a very strong promise to believe in from the United States, but we are going to look forward to bringing you coverage in October, on October 27th of the appeal of the extradition ruling, the appeal by the United States two days to determine whether the decision by Venetso Beres is upheld or not. In the meantime, of course, over the next couple of months, we'll be bringing you continuous coverage of the Julian Assange case, both in print on consortium news website and on CN Live. So for CN Live and for my producer, Cathy Wogan, I'm signing off. This is Joe Laurier for Consortium News. Good night.