Robert Knight interviews Michael Ratner of The Center for Constitutional Rights on Five O'Clock Shadow WBAI 99.5FM
The interview can be heard at http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/60912
RK: People around the world woke up today to the surprise announcement that the Editor in Chief of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, who had been under house arrest in England, was now at the Ecuadorian Embassy to the United Kingdom, where he is seeking asylum, because he fears for the conditions he will face if he is extradited to Sweden and then probably to the United States. To help clarify these breaking developmens, we're happy to be joined by Julian Assange's American lawyer Michael Ratner.
Welcome back, Michael.
MR: Robert Knight, it's always good to be with you. You've been doing a great job as usual. I was as surprised as you were when I got a text from someone saying that Julian Assange has just gone to the Ecuadorian Embassy and is asking for political asylum, And so I've been trying figure out how to sort it out and of course I have a good understanding of it and I think you summarized it pretty well.
Broadly stated what was gonna happen to him was he had lost all his appeals against going to Sweden through the English courts.
The case in Sweden around Julian Assange is the allegations - there are no charges yet - that Julian
Assange was involved in the sexual abuse of two women. And he was wanted for questioning in Sweden, not yet - if at all - for a criminal charge. And he was in England at the time that they'd
been requesting him from Sweden, and he resisted going to Sweden not because it was to him a key issue that if he went to Sweden and answered questions, that could have resulted in a different results - it could have resulted in no charges, it could have resulted in charges, it could have resulted in a trial - but that's never been his biggest worry. His biggest worry was if and when he went to Sweden, would it be easier for the US to get its hands on him - and we can talk about why the US wants to get its hands on him.
But when I heard about it I said well, he had two bad choices, one worse than the other. The worst choice that would have happened was that on July 7 - which is roughly he day he would have to be taken to Sweden - in custody - he would have gone into Sweden and they would have put him in prison, They have no bail in Sweden - even for this -- there haven't been charges, but even for this kind of allegation - and he would have been more or less incommunicado in Sweden - and then even assuming Sweden decided not to charge him with any kind of sexual abuse crime, at that moment
he would not have likely been released because the US would have been right there in the courtroom with an extradition warrant and he would remain in jail, and then ultimately, assuming he would not beat that exrtradition warrant in Sweden - because Sweden really goes along with what the US wants ultimately - he would have wound up in a prison in the US where he was facing
conditions and a trial that we can talk about. So that was one of his choices: let himself get into the hands of the US ultimately or the other one - get himself into an embassy and ask for political asylum. And considering the consequences of what he was facing if the US ever gets its hands on him - where politicians have even called for him to be murdered - that was a really bad choice had he had to go that way. Not that it's an easy choice to go into the Ecuadorian Embassy, because who knows what the outcome is, and again we can talk about that,
RK: Michael Ratner you and your colleagues have certainly been
doing wonderful work at the Center with your colleagues on the
issue of people who are brought for detention into the US. And
this may not be unrelated to the potential fate of Julian Assange
as the editor of Wikileaks, which published the video Collateral
Murder about the civilians killed by American troops in Iraq - as
well as the treasure trove of the State Department's secret cables. But the latest publication of Wikileaks was from the for-hire intelligency agency
jown as Stratfor, in which the leader of that group said that he had
inside information that that there is a sealed indictment for Julian Assange. What is your estimate of the truth of that claim and what could he be facing
here?
MR: A lot of the discussion has been well, you don't know there
has been an indictment, To me the first thing is, if there's no
indictment and if there's no potential prosecution and if there's no
targeting of Julian Assange by the US - and I haven't spoken to
Julian about this, but if the US says that he's under no risk for
being exrtradited to the US and facing charges for what wer'e
gonna discuss next - espionage - then I think Julian Assange
would go to Sweden, because then he can deal with that case -
and none of us know the truth or the non-truth of that case - but
he can deal with that case in Sweden. And he would. I just think
the underlying issue is that once he's in Sweden he might as well
say he's in the US. The Stratfor email that you're referring to is
the one that says there's a sealed indictment against Julian
Assange. Stratfor is of course a private intelligence agency. As to
how reliable, it is a private intelligence agency that has close
access to people in the CIA and otherwise, so it may well be
reliable. I add that to other facts that I know when I make my
estimate that it's very likely that there's an indictment or potential
indictment of Julian Assange.
I add to that that there's an ongoing Grand Jury in Eastern
District of Virginia in one of the more conservative courts that's
been investigating Wikileaks and Bradley Manning the US Private
who allegedly leaked the documents to Wikileaks - Bradley
Manning who is currently on trial or going through the proceedings
of various phases of a court martial in Fort Meade, and that
Grand Jury was looking into both Bradley Manning and Wikileaks
and Julian Assange. And there have been witnesses called before that Grand Jury. So the Stratfor claim that there's a sealed indictment against Julian has foundation and we've also sent people and gone to various phases of the Bradley Manning trial, and at that trial it has come out from FBI agents that they're investigating various civilians - Bradley
Manning of course is in the military - who are founders and or
work at Wikileaks. So you put that together with all these
politicians and eveybody else calling for the prosecution of Julian
Assange and you can say he'd be taking a high risk in going to
Sweden, is what I would say.
And you ask me Robert, well what are the charges? Well Bradley
Manning is being charged under military law with all kinds of
computer hacking kinds of stuff, and with aiding the enemy which
is somewhat equivalent to espionage. We have a US espionage
statute that has never really been used against journalists or
publishers. But on the other hand they're looking at it at this
Grand Jury, and looking at it with regard to Julian Assange. And
we have to put it in the context of the Obama administration
having prosecuted six whistleblowers already, which is double the
number of whistle blowers prosecuted in all prior administrations,
which total three. So they're obviously looking heavily at Julian
Assange. I think as I said there's most likely an indictment of him already.
Espionage carries a life sentence potentially, one section of it
actually carries a death penalty. We would hope Europe wouldn't extradite to a death penalty country and would have to get an assurance that
there isn't before they'd extradite here, because Europe doesn't
agree with the death penalty, but he could technically be facing the death penalty and certainly life in prison. And the conditions in which he'd be held under we're familiar with because of our clietns from Guantanamo to Pelican Bay to US federal prisons - the Florence ADX - to what they do
with people like Julian Assange. I can only tell you that chances -
I wouldnt want to say 100% - but they're close to saying that
He would be put in solitary for a very long time.
He would have no communication with the outside world at all,
other than people like me or attorneys going to visit him.
I would not be able to get on a radio show like yours Robert, and
say that I spoke to Julian Assange and here's what he told me,
because the government would claim that he has all this computer
stuff in his head and it might be secret codes, and so he would be
isolated and cut off. He would then be tried, most likely for an
espipnage charge - maybe conspiracy to commit espionage -
conceivably with Bradley Manning - and he could be put away for
a very long time in the context of a country that has gone after
him heavily on this, and politicians that want him executed or to
serve life in prison.
And this is in the context for me of someone who is a real hero,
who has disclosed the collateral murder video concerning the
two Reuters journalists who were killed by the US army, including
the attacks on children in Iraq. He disclosed the Iraq war documents
that disclosed that 15,000 more civilians were mudered than the
US had said, the Afghan war logs which again talk about many
killings that were unacknowledged before then, and then of course the thing that brought the ire up to a very high level - was the Wikileaks state department cables - 100,000 or more cables that brought out all kinds of hyprocrisy in our State Dept. So when someone is a whistle blower - or really in that case a publisher and a journalist like that that brings out all of that material - they should be treated as heros because they are lifting the veil of secrecy that so now covers up all the misdeeds of our government and so undercuts democracy which is based on knowing what out
government does. So he should be a hero and the people who committed the war crimes - people like Rumsfeld and others - they should be in the
dock and not Julian Assange. So unfortunately it's utterly
reversed in this country, the journalists have not really gone out
and supported Julian Assange as they should have, and
supported Wikileaks. I find this to be terrible, I find his personal
and political situation to be just awful right now. The two choices
he had were crazy, because one was putting himself in the
hands of the US and the other was putting himself in the hands of
the Ecuadorian Embassy, which may not be so bad inside the
Embassy, but even assuming they give him political asylum, how
does he get out of the Embassy?
RK: We're speaking live with the American Attorney for Julian
Assange, Michael Ratner, who is also a cohost of Law and
Disorder which is a show on Monday mornings on WBAI's
airwaves. Michael, I'm so grateful to you for taking time out from
what must be a very stressful and busy day given these breaking
events. My final qustion for you is this: Julian Assange is
overnight in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has
sought asylum because of political persecution and the attempt to
extradite him to Sweden and then the US. Now if I am not
mistaken, his being there is a violation of the terms of the bail
that was set for him, and short of a transporter beam, if he is
indeed granted asylum in Ecuador as hinted at by President
Correa some time ago, - short of a transporter beam, I don't see
how he could get there without being arrested and then remanded
to Sweden and possibly the US - unless he was granted
Ecuadorian citizenship and then appointed a diplomat - and
therefore have immunity.
MR: Ah! That's one I hadn't thought of. Maybe you should be part of our legal team.
RK: Glad to help.
MR: Interesting. Very interesting actually. But you're right, the
problem is that even if he gets political asylum - and I'm optimistic
- then how does he get out of the Embassy, because when he
leaves the Embassy he's no longer protected by the Vienna
Convention, which protects the Embassy and considers it
essentially a part of Ecuador for the purposes of any other
country going into it. When he steps out onto British UK land
outside the Embassy, he can be arrested, and there are cops
sitting there right as we speak saying we're going to arrrest him!
So at that poiint he either needs a safe passage from the UK
which seems at this point unlikely, although we never know in
these situations - or, your thought of giving him citizenship -
perhaps that would work - or we thought he could go into an
embassy car with one of those little flags you see all the time -
and then drive to the airport and then run into the airplane. Well
that's probably not so great because the Vienna Convention - well
we don't know -- may not really have the saem efficacy with
regard to a car, and you know, he has to get out on the tarmac
and all that.
So the two proposals we now have in front of us are yours which is interesting to say the least and the other one, and I think yours may be more lilely in getting him a safe conduct but you never know. You know there's a history to this kind of stuff if you look through the pages, particularly during the cold war when people who opposed various governments, particularly in the Soviet Union or allied countries - one in Hungary in particular, Cardinal Mindszenty. Whatever people thought of Cardinal
Mindszenty, he went into a US embassy in Hungary and stayed
there for 14-15 years, living in the Embassy and finally Hungary
gave him a safe passage out of the country. So we don't know
how it;s gonna come out and it may make an interesting story, But
the thing we know is -- we know it would have come out had he
gone to Sweden. And I don't mean about the Sweden abuse
charges, because those - serious as they might be and none of
us know because there hasn't been a trial yet - and we have to
presume him inocent until there's a trial - but serious as those
might or might not be - they just pale in comparison to what would
happen to him if the US gets its hands on him - both in the
conditions of his confinement - which if you look at Bradley
Manning who was tortured while he was in confinement, and in
what would have happened to him if he were at trial. So of the
bad choices that he had, he probably made the one that made the
most sense for himself.
RK: Well, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights and of
Law and Disorder, I thank you so much today for so well
representing, both on Five O'Clock Shadow and in the courts,
your client, Julian Assange.
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