I’m covering Julian Assange’s 4wk extradition trial to the US for @CourtNewsUK

Kicking off tomorrow, it’ll feature Manning, Snowden, Trump, Putin, Bin Laden (& maybe even Pamela Anderson, Lady Gaga & Vivienne Westwood).

But what's at stake, and how will it play out? (1/?)

If he loses, Assange will be taken to ADX Florence high security prison in the Colorado desert. His fellow inmates will include El Chapo, Abu Hamza & a 9/11 terrorist. He might wait years there for a trial. If convicted, he faces up to 175 years behind bars.

WHAT DID HE DO? He’s sought on an 18 count indictment. 1 relates to helping Chelsea Manning crack a password (to hide her identity while she looked for info for him). 17 are about obtaining and leaking classified docs.

Those 17 fall into 4 areas: leaking of 250k state department cables (under Clinton), leaking 400k Iraq & 90k Afghanistan war reports (including un-redacted names of US informants) & leaking un-redacted names of Gitmo inmates.

Interestingly, the leak Assange is most famous for (the 2007 ‘Collateral murder’ video that shows US soldiers laughing as they shoot casualties - including a Reuters journalist & photographer) is not in the indictment, possibly because the US don’t want it shown in court.

But the ‘Rules of Engagement’ document that guides military action in war zones and allegedly proves the 2007 attack was illegal is part of the indictment.

But the prosecution won’t just affect Assange, it *could* lead to charges against The Mainstream Media™ too. Why? Because Assange would be the first publisher to be charged under the espionage act.

Now Obama considered charging Assange under the act but decided against it as the New York Times / Guardian / Daily Telegraph (among others) also published the info, so it could also open them up to prosecution. Trump (shockingly) seems less bothered about this.

But this is all for the Americans, really. What District Judge Vanessa Baraitser will decide at the Old Bailey hearing is, firstly, whether his alleged crimes would (if committed against the UK) fall foul of the Official Secrets Act.

If so, he’s liable for extradition.

Then the best QC’s in the UK will argue about whether there are any other reasons (ill health, overly cruel punishment, the precedent, whether it’s a political crime) he shouldn’t be sent stateside.

US prisons & sentences are very, very tough & Assange has spent a decade locked inside with health issues. The few times I’ve seen him (he usually claims his respiratory symptoms are too severe to attend at all) he's looked frail, but more together than many defendants.

BUT it would be very unusual for the UK to ban an extradition on the basis the US’ legal system was inherently cruel. Otherwise why have an extradition treaty in the first place?

EXCEPT for the fact that the US/UK extradition treaty does not cover ‘political crimes’. Assange’s team will point to the alleged interference by Trump’s administration to show this is indeed a political prosecution of a political crime.

Trouble is, political crimes are pretty loosely defined. Team Assange could point to Trump’s statements as political motivation —> he went from I Love Wikileaks (after Clinton’s emails were published) to I Know Noting About Wikileaks (after the arrest) to...

...Wikileaks Are Disgraceful And Assange Deserves Death (after they leaked Trump administration documents showing CIA spying software).

Assange’s team could also reference the multiple last-minute additions (the latest in mid August) to the indictments, which some think was intended to delay the hearing until after the US election - for partisan reasons.

Or they could say Trump put Dana Rohrabacher (R - Cal) up to offering Assange a pardon as long as he said Russia was not the source of the 2016 election leak of Clinton’s emails. Rohrabacher claims he went without the president’s knowledge.

They could also talk about David Morales. Morales was hired by the Ecuadorian embassy to protect Assange but was turned by the US in 2016. Trump-backer Sheldon Adelson allegedly paid him off to spy on Assange and his partner / lawyer Stella Moris.

Morales is also said to have bugged the embassy and obtained the fingerprints and phone data of Assange’s visitors. Vivienne Westwood, Lady Gaga, Pamela Anderson, Michael Moore, Slavoj Žižek, Nigel Farage and Eric Cantona among them.

Some reports also state Morales held discussions about ‘extreme measures’ to control Assange, including poison or kidnap.

But the US’ argument that Assange put lives in danger by releasing the un-redacted names of US informants in Iraq/Afghanistan will be harder to combat with accusations of political interference.

If it is true Bin Laden had sent word to get copies of Wikileaks’ documents, if it’s true the Taliban used Wikileaks’ docs to hunt for informants, the situation changes. And remember the US don’t have to prove this, only show they have a reasonable suspicion it’s the case.

Aside from political interference, Assange’s team will claim that - as an Aussie accused of committing crimes outside the US - his extradition could mean America can successfully go after any journalist, anywhere in the world, who falls foul of their secrecy laws.

If Assange’s team are successful he will walk free given he’s now served the 50 week sentence imposed for skipping bail to hide in the embassy.

If not, he could well die in prison.

Either way, the next 4 weeks will be more vital to press freedom than a bunch of XR protesters blocking some lorries for a couple of hours, imo.

UPDATE: after 2 weeks I’ve got some factual fleshing out, correcting, insights & a bit of goss to add.

Starting with the biggest and arguably most damaging claim: Assange leaked names of US informants putting their lives in danger.

Is it true? Yes - but there's a big BUT.

WikiLeaks published in late 2010 after a stringent redaction process.

Those involved say Assange was actually the one trying to convince media partners (Guardian, NYT, El Pais, Der Spiegel, Le Mond) to slow down. Guardian journo David Leigh named as partic keen to hurry it up.

(Their method is also q interesting: they couldn’t redact by hand so they created software that deleted every word NOT found in an English dictionary: so names - esp Iraqi and Afghani - would be removed.)

Assange even worked with the US government (via media orgs) to redact the documents.

At their request WL did not publish 15k Afghan logs. WL also say they over-redacted Iraq logs by taking out info that was publicly available from Defence Dept FOIs.

Then the US gov stopped co-operating.

WL say this is because it made it easier to prosecute Assange. Others say US just realised they were pointing media to the most interesting / damaging parts.

Either way, seems the US could've ensured no names were published, but didn't.

Then in Aug/Sep 2011 WikiLeaks released it all. 250k un-redacted documents containing the names of people persecuted by their governments, informants, victims of sex offences & locations of sensitive gov infrastructure.

But here’s the BUT…

The docs were already in public domain (!)

Turns out David Leigh & another Guardian journo Luke Harding (in a monumental oversight) published the full password to the un-redacted files in their book in February 2011.

6 months before WikiLeaks published them.

Then a website – Cryptome – published. Only after this did WL release the un-redacted files.

(Harding and Leigh say they thought the password would have been changed.)

The much-quoted criticism of WL by their partner media orgs ( https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publishes-cache-unredacted-cables) was written before this chain of events was known, according to Der Spiegel journo John Goetz.

Also worth noting 0 documents WL published were Top Secret – they were the level down.

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked Pentagon Papers, said he ONLY published Top Secret information and did not redact any names, even when it mentioned a friend and CIA operative stationed abroad.

(Ellsberg said he didn’t want to redact because he was trying to prove a negative – that there was not a good reason to go to war with Vietnam – and any redactions might lead people to think he was covering up a good reason for the war).

SECOND CLAIM: If Assange is successful he will walk, if not he will be extradited and could die in prison.

True? NO. I got this wrong. Whoever loses will appeal to High & Supreme Court. This is just the beginning of the journey (which partly explains lack of media coverage...

... also the fact it’s a fairly complicated case, there’s loads of other news on, and media orgs are waiting for an explosive court day before reporting - are the other reasons it's such big news.

SUBJECTIVE insights / rumours:

- Team US might be struggling. Attempts to undermine/trap fall flat when witnesses are so well-versed in law and specifics of the case.

- Daniel Ellsberg is a v impressive speaker. For 89yo he’s v v v impressive.

- Old Bailey can't work Skype.

- WikiLeaks broke major stories and were a public good in many ways, incl:

> Highlighting potential war crimes.
> Exposing US pressures on Germany not to seek arrest of CIA agents who tortured one of their citizens.
> Helping lawyers of Gitmo detainees seek justice.

- Judge Vanessa Baraitser is NOT conducting this trial in any unfair / unjust way. Chief Mag Emma Arbuthnot (rightly) recused herself, VB has no such questionable links.

Assange supporters have a good case but this risks undermining credibility.

FROM BEING IN THE ROOM. I was the first journo to sit in court with Assange for a full day after successfully applying to the court. Here’s some goss:
> Assange has a massive log of evidence and follows the case along with everybody from the dock.

> He talks to his team lots, especially celeb lawyer Jennifer Robison (who represented Amber Heard), partner Stella Moris (who spends most time looking anxiously @ him) and a young man (teen or early 20s) who – rumour and rumour alone has it – is a WL computer whiz.

> There are whispers Assange is unhappy with his defence team and his case.
> Team Assange see him as a risky witness and don't want him to testify - at least not yet. (prob not a shock given he's interrupted 3 times & is famous for being, um, 'independently minded'?)

The most important thing is we can now hear Assange’s outbursts (he cannot be heard on the link because he is not mic’d and the judge speaks over him).

This happened on Friday: https://twitter.com/CharlieDanJones/status/1306920403554783236