Lawyers for US urge UK court to reject Assange appeal bid
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00:00 Now, it is being seen as the final roll of the dice to prevent Julian Assange's extradition
00:05 to the United States. This week, a top court in London is hearing a case brought by the
00:10 lawyers of the WikiLeaks founder. He faces multiple indictments in the US linked to the
00:16 publication of secret military files about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And today,
00:23 lawyers for the US government are setting out their case in the court. Well, that court
00:27 is the Royal Courts of Justice in central London and our London correspondent, Bénédicte
00:32 Paviot, is there bringing us up to speed. Bénédicte, what's the US government's argument
00:39 today in court as to why Assange should be extradited?
00:46 In one word, really, espionage. So as you said, I mean, day one of this permission to
00:52 appeal hearing was about the defence legal team of Julian Assange and why he should not
00:59 be extradited in this really last ditch effort to stop his extradition to the United States.
01:06 But today is the US team and they will be putting forward various arguments and very
01:13 much espionage charges in the United States for which they want Julian Assange, the co-founder
01:21 of WikiLeaks, to be extradited as soon as possible. So Assange's lawyers were asking
01:26 the High Court to stop this. But today, and they've just begun, the US legal team will
01:33 want the 52-year-old Australian to face the indictments, the 17 charges of espionage and
01:41 one charge of complete misuse, computer misuse over his website publication of over 700,000
01:49 classified documents. So very serious charges that Julian Assange is facing here. And according
01:58 to his legal team, 175 years in prison, which is denied by the Americans who say it's not
02:06 175 years, it would be much shorter. And of course, what the Americans will also in their
02:13 legal defence team be saying very much is they have given assurances that he will get
02:18 a fair trial and also that he will be treated in a fair manner if and when he does actually
02:25 go to prison. This of course is disputed very much. You can possibly hear behind me very,
02:33 very noisy chanting from the supporters. We think that Julian Assange is again not in
02:40 court today. He wasn't yesterday. He was granted permission to be, but he remains in, as for
02:47 the last five years, in the high security prison of Belmarsh in the outskirts of London,
02:53 awaiting really his fate. You mentioned his supporters there, Benedict. Assange certainly
03:00 a divisive figure, isn't he? But he does have plenty of supporters, many of whom say this
03:06 case is about more than Assange himself. This is, they say, a question of press freedom.
03:13 Indeed. And this is why the very noisy supporters who some have queued from very early morning,
03:22 some have come from various countries around the world. And although the Americans are
03:27 very much seeking to say that Julian Assange is an activist, not just a journalist, and
03:33 that he's put other people's lives at risk, what these supporters are saying, what the
03:38 National Union of Journalists is saying, what reporters are saying is that this would have
03:43 a chilling effect and repercussions, not just for journalism here in the United Kingdom
03:49 or indeed in the United States, but around the world, where what would really be the
03:55 decisions made by journalists when they do either obtain, seek to obtain, obtain leaked
04:02 documents, what could the consequences be if and when they report them, and how this
04:07 is essential to any democracy to have these kind of investigative, whether it's data journalism
04:13 or other revelations. So his supporters say he's actually exposed war crimes, exposed
04:19 particularly to do with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and that he's been serving a very important
04:25 purpose of accountability and transparency of the United States and the way in which
04:31 they conduct their behavior in these leaks, revealed in these leaks of over 700,000 documents
04:38 that are cable and military top secret documents. Of course, let's remember, we've all got so
04:44 used to the internet and leaks and publications of all kinds, but it had never been done before.
04:51 I remember standing outside the court back in 2010 when Julian Assange was first arrested,
04:57 he pressed a button and the whole world could then read these leaks or indeed see footage,
05:03 for example, of an American US helicopter shooting down at civilians in Baghdad. It's
05:10 easy to forget how monumental those revelations were, and that is why the world's press is
05:18 watching very much the Assange case and wondering what the implications, depending on whether
05:24 he loses his battle, in which case he would go to the ECHR, we understand from his legal
05:29 team, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which would then suspend for some
05:35 time or not his extradition, or if he wins this hearing to get a full hearing, in which
05:44 case he would then have an avenue yet again in the British judicial system. If he loses,
05:52 it's the end of his British judicial potential appeals. That's it.
05:58 Benedict Pavio in London.
06:00 Thank you.