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00:00 Let's cross to France 24's Bénédicte Paviot who is also outside the High Court in London.
00:04 Bénédicte, just tell us what's been happening there.
00:06 Well what's been happening is the day started with a demonstration of a lot of supporters of
00:15 Julian Assange. Many of them are still here and have all kinds of slogans, placards,
00:22 are very very concerned and are making their voices heard. I mean the one that is the most
00:28 chanted is "Free, free Assange". Now, important that we played that clip of Stella Assange,
00:34 Julian Assange's wife, because this is very much the line that the argument by Ed Fitzgerald
00:42 this morning was used before the two judges. So to be clear, what is happening here in the
00:48 Royal Courts of Justice behind me is something called a permission to appeal. So what Julian
00:55 Assange's legal team are doing is they're appealing to get a full appeal because apart from that he's
01:01 exhausted every other possible avenue in the British judicial system. So yes he's been in
01:06 prison for five years, yes he's not here although he was granted permission to be here or even
01:11 appear by video link. But what his legal team have been saying in court today in order to justify,
01:18 explain and argue a future, they hope, full appeal and this is just day one of this permission to
01:25 appeal. We'll have the defence arguments today and tomorrow we have the US arguments. So this
01:31 morning what Ed Fitzgerald was saying, Julian Assange's lawyer, is that this is political.
01:39 It's motivated by politics and therefore this does not respect at all the UK-US Treaty. You
01:47 cannot extradite somebody for political reasons. Also just before the court adjourned they were
01:54 talking about the fact that this is common practice, say Julian Assange's legal team,
01:59 for certain journalists in the US to traditionally get leaks and to report them and after all that's
02:07 what Julian Assange was doing. Of course there are many National Union journalists, the reporters
02:13 outboarders, many organisations here and around the world saying this is an attack on journalism.
02:18 What America and the United States are saying is look this publication of over 700,000 highly
02:25 confidential military secrets and cables have actually endangered the lives of informants
02:32 and therefore he must be extradited. It's all to play for, the stakes are very high, if he loses
02:38 he can only go to the European Court of Human Rights, the ECHR, in order to hope to suspend
02:44 his extradition. So very high stakes here, possibly a decision tomorrow.
02:49 I just wanted to pick you up on that, I mean this is pretty much isn't it his last chance,
02:55 just to be clear, to avoid being extradited. Just talk us through what other
02:59 possibilities he might have to stop that from happening.
03:07 Well I've been reporting on this for 13 years, ever since the beginning and Julian Assange who
03:13 thought he went for an interview to New Scotland Yard actually got arrested and spent his first
03:19 night in prison, although he'd been bailed. And here we are, he's had extradition hearings,
03:24 he's had appeals in the High Court, we've been there, he's had appeals at the Supreme Court,
03:29 we've been there too. And basically if he loses, if his team loses and we could find out as I said
03:36 tomorrow, if not it could be a few days, he will only have one recourse and his legal team had said
03:42 they would apply immediately to the ECHR in Strasbourg in order to try and get that appeal.
03:49 But there is no certainty that they would. If he wins then we have a more protracted
03:54 judicial process here in the United Kingdom.
03:56 Okay well thank you very much indeed for bringing us all the latest from
04:01 the High Court in London. France 24's Benedict Paviot there, thank you.