Randy Credico: The last time I saw you was in December of 2017. I had seen Julian three months earlier and his health had declined noticeably in those few months. Now that he is in jail, is he able to see doctors? What is his physical health like at this point?
Stefania Maurizi: I am not sure whether he is able to see visitors. It is a very strict regime, there are very strict rules for suspected terrorists. He spends most of his time completely alone. This comes after spending the last seven years at the embassy almost entirely alone, apart from occasional visits. So you can imagine how his forced isolation is affecting his health.
Randy Credico: I look at the sentence that judge Deborah Taylor handed down: a year in jail for allegedly skipping bail. Can you go into the bogus charges that were never filed against Julian, and how they were perpetuated with the assistance of the Crown Prosecution Service?
Stefania Maurizio: Three years had passed since the Swedish case was closed. No journalistic organization had ever tried to access these documents. Thousands of journalists had covered the case but no one had the facts clear. At that point I realized that it was important from a journalistic point of view to try to access the documentation. These documents allow us to establish important facts, such as that it was the U.K. that advised the Swedish prosecutors against questioning Assange in London. The whole case began with this refusal by the Swedish prosecutor. Now we know that behind this decision there was the Crown Prosecution Service. Let's not forget that this agency is the very same agency which is in charge of deciding whether to extradite Julian Assange to the U.S. now. The Crown Prosecution Service entered the case at the very beginning and they advised the Swedish prosecutor against questioning Assange in London. Julian Assange never refused to be questioned, he refused to be extradited because he was convinced that the extradition to Sweden could pave the way for his extradition to the U.S.
Now we see that he was right.
And it was the Crown Prosecution Service which advised the Swedish prosecutor against dropping the case in 2013. At that time the Swedish prosecutor considered to drop the case but the Crown Prosecution Service was against this possibility.
Finally, it was the Crown Prosecution Service who destroyed crucial emails about the case, even though the case is still ongoing. I am still fighting in the U.K. tribunal because I want to access these documents and fill in the gaps. Now the Swedish prosecutor is evaluating whether to open this case once again. The statute of limitations is in August 2020. There is a massive campaign about Julian being a rapist. After one or two years of this campaign, who will care about Julian Assange being extradited to the U.S.? That is a possible scenario.
Dennis Bernstein: Again, Julian had his first hearing today [May 2, 2019] regarding extradition to the United States. He looked okay but he is definitely in danger. Stefania, what responsibility do we have as journalists to stand up? According to Daniel Ellsberg, if they go after Julian and Chelsea the way they want to in the United States, it is the end of journalism.
Stefania Maurizi: Absolutely. This case is about whether the press is allowed to publish documents like the video "Collateral Murder," which records war crimes and whether the press is allowed to publish documents about the NSA spying on world leaders, whether the press is allowed to publish documents on Guantanamo Bay. We saw what happened after 9/11: habeas corpus came to an end with Guantanamo, the Fourth Amendment [of the U.S. Constitution] was trampled by the NSA. Now they want to destroy the First Amendment and they will do it using Julian Assange. They will not go after The New York Times or The Washington Post.
Dennis Bernstein: Wouldn't you say that part of the genius of WikiLeaks was the ability to guarantee anonymity? The reason why Assange has been successful and all these major journalistic organizations were willing to work with him is because of this process he created to guarantee anonymity.
Stefania Maurizi: Julian Assange understands technology and he understands the nature of power. Most geeks know very little about power, about empire. Thanks to his knowledge in the technology field, we have this platform. But let's not forget that WikiLeaks is in trouble now, not because they have this platform, but because they have the courage to publish. It is not enough to get the documents. Most newsrooms hide such documents. One of the journalists at The Washington Post had the video "Collateral Murder" and he didn't publish it. WikiLeaks did.
It is not enough to have the platform: you have to have the integrity and the courage to publish. The New York Times didn't publish the important story that the NSA was intercepting the communications of U.S. citizens for more than a year. For years The New York Times didn't want to use the word "torture," preferring instead "enhanced interrogation." The reason the U.S. authorities are hostile toward WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is because they publish what the U.S. media and many other media don't want to publish.
Dennis Bernstein: Would you like to do a shout-out from one courageous woman there in Italy to a woman who became a woman in solitary confinement and was arrested again on International Women's Day?
Stefania Maurizi: I feel a huge debt of gratitude because I have worked on Chelsea Manning's documents for years. I supported her defense fund, I wrote to her in prison. I have tried to explain to my readers why she is tremendously courageous. I really would like to see her go free because I cannot accept that one of the most important journalistic sources of all time is again in prison.
Dennis Bernstein: Both Randy and I are extremely grateful for your work, Stefania Maurizi, investigative journalist for la Repubblica and author of "Dossier WikiLeaks," which describes the power of a courageous publisher like Julian Assange, who has worked with extraordinary sources to get information out which we would otherwise never have heard.
Listen to the interview on KPFA
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