 US authorities are still pursuing the extradition of Julian Assange to face charges of espionage. Back in January, a judge blocked Assange's extradition. That was on the basis that Assange was likely to kill himself if he was held under the harsh conditions of the US prison system. But the US are disputing that they're appealing the decision and they want to appeal the decision on the basis that the expert witness, the psychiatrist who said that Julian Assange was at risk of suicide are suggesting he was unreliable because he didn't disclose something about Julian Assange, which was that when he was in the Ecuadorian embassy, he fathered two children. The lawyer says he kept that to himself because it was an issue of privacy for Julian Assange. A judge today has ruled that that does potentially undermine the expert witness. The Guardian report delivering the latest Lord Justice Holroyd said it was very unusual for an appeal court to have to consider evidence from an expert that had been accepted by a lower court, but also found to have been misleading. Even if the expert's actions had been deemed an understandable human response designed to protect the privacy of Assange's partner and children. So the judge there saying, yes, I don't think the expert witnesses has necessarily behaved in a immoral way. They just wanted to maintain the privacy of Julian Assange, but the fact they didn't reveal this does put in question the reliability of the other evidence they came, which was about Julian Assange's mental health. All of this means, and this is what I find quite depressing, that this October we're going to have another court case, which is based on quite how suicidal is Julian Assange. I think the fact that this is the basis of the court case, obviously not blaming the lawyers here. The lawyers have to use whatever means they possibly can to stop a whistleblower being tried for espionage or credit to the lawyers. But the fact that our legal system means that instead of discussing freedom of speech and discussing the fact that we are extraditing someone who's done journalism for espionage, they're discussing whether or not quite how suicidal is. I find that incredibly depressing. Let's go to the lawyer for the US because she makes it quite clear, I suppose, how grim this all is. Claire Dobbin is her name. She said, he has not made the sort of serious attempt on his life or have the history of serious self-harm seen in other cases. It really requires a mental illness of a type that the ability to resist suicide has been lost. Part of the appeal will be that Mr. Assange did not have a mental illness that came close to being of that nature and that degree. Dobbin also argued that Assange proved he was able to withstand dire conditions by remaining trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy for seven years. I don't feel like I'm in a position to adjudicate as to whether the judge has made a reasonable decision here. I don't have the experience in in jurisprudence. What I find grim though is that when we should have an issue which is based on freedom of speech, which is based on the right to protect whistleblowers, instead, we are saying, oh, the guy should go to America unless there is zero chance that he won't kill himself. We have to be absolutely sure that he will kill himself. Otherwise, he gets extradited. It seems just completely bizarre to me. How do you test this hypothesis? We don't think he'll kill himself. And then if he kills himself in a US prison, oh, sorry, we were wrong. You have an independent assessment by a professional who's familiar with these things, which is precisely what happened. So you're obviously right. The nuances of the case are above our pay grade. But clearly, the politics, the whole thing thinks. There is an issue in talking about suicide. And of course, we've had multiple high-profile suicides in the US prison system in recent years. Most recently, of course, Jeffrey Epstein. So the idea that, well, the last time you had a very high-profile inmate, they allegedly killed themselves. Why would Mr. Assange be any different? Specifically if they're of a politically sensitive nature, I think is a good one. The suicide rate in American prisons and jails is very high. It's very, very high. And as is self-harm, I think about 20% of people in the US prison system are assassins having profound mental health issues. So obviously, he's been through a great deal of mental stress. You don't have to like the guy. You might think he's done wrong. You might think he should be incarcerated. But I don't think anybody would dispute the fact he's in clear emotional mental distress. That's visible just from his appearance. He's obviously been through a very unique thing. But I am worried as well, Michael, we're talking about his case in a completely wrong way. We aren't talking about the political substance of what's happened. It's not to blame the lawyers that this is not what they're arguing about. This is a problem with British law. But what do you think should be being argued in court right now if we live in a more just world? Of course. And it's important to say, look, they think this is what gets him off. I mean, that's the case. But my point is, from a political standpoint, it's a shame that we're not talking about the substance of what this man's done. And obviously, this is meant to be about justice. Right now, the Taliban is recapturing Afghanistan. Britain, the United States and their allies, when they're 20 years ago, actually a month after 9-11, effectively, and we've been there for 20 years, we've spent, Britain only spent about 35 billion, which is obviously an immense amount of money. It's about £2,000 per family per household. But together, $2 trillion was spent in Afghanistan. 100,000 Afghan civilians died. I think more than 2,000 US combat personnel died, more than 430, 50 British combat personnel died. Many more got PTSD, lost limbs, et cetera, et cetera. Profound devastating loss. And people like Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were trying to expose the military war machine, the commercial military war machine, behind that intervention, behind war in Iraq, and show, actually, they didn't go there with good intentions, generally speaking, and they certainly weren't blamed by the book. And WikiLeaks exposed, for instance, disgusting attacks on civilians, I think things that border on war crimes, et cetera, forms of illegal detention. I don't know specifically about Afghanistan, but most certainly in Iraq. And that war machine can't allow Julian Assange to get away with it. And so we are now living in a world where the goodies, the people who uphold justice, are the ones that went to Afghanistan spent $2 trillion. Actually, nothing changed, except now the Taliban have Humvees and Apache helicopters. They didn't 20 years ago. All right. And people might say, well, they won't have them very long. They got shut down, or they'll be drone strikes, probably. But are they going to take Kabul and Kandahar first? Yes, I imagine. So who are the good guys? Julian Assange who exposed that? All these other people who profit from war. They profited from selling all this military hardware, and they're going to profit from the machines now destroying the military hardware being used by the Taliban. And I think there's a certain sort of poetic, poetic element to it. I don't like to use that word, but I think that's what it is. These events right now in Afghanistan are ongoing. The government of Afghanistan is collapsing in the face of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban. While Julian Assange is potentially being extradited back to the United States. And this is the argument we're having. Oh, well, we don't think he's going to kill himself. What a toxic civilization we are living in, Michael. Utterly barbaric and toxic. And I don't think you need to be on the left to say, you know what, in 50, 60, 70 years time, people will look at that as a, what the fuck moment? What the fuck? They'll be looking, and I'm sorry to use the F bomb in front of our audience, but that's exactly what it is. And they'll be looking at the first 20 years of the 21st century, culminating in our defeat in Central Asia and the Middle East, culminating in what's happening to Julian Assange. But God willing, he doesn't go to the United States and he's left free. And they will say, wow, they spent trillions of dollars destroying Central Asia, but no particular reason, literally for the status quo ante. Actually, no, that's not true. We did do one thing, which is massively increase opium production in Afghanistan. That's the legacy. Instead of putting that money into climate change and transitioning our economy away from fossil fuels and the people that did it with the good guys, the people that did it with the good guys and the bad mean guy was Julian Assange, enemy of national security. You know, we don't need to wait 50, 60 years to say that's a crock of shit, Michael, because it is, but that will be the universal consensus. God willing, in our lifetimes.