The US attorney of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tells DW what it
will take for his client to leave the Equadorian embassy in London.
Michael Ratner also offers some advice for NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Michael Ratner is the US attorney for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. He
is chairman of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights
(ECCHR) in Berlin and president emeritus of the Center for
Constitutional Rights in New York. DW: What do you make of the
reactions in Europe to the Bradley Manning verdict and the leaks by
Edward Snowden? Michael Ratner: The reaction in Europe generally has
been much better than in the United States. The stories in Europe often
lead with 'NSA doing this…' etc. rather than attacks on Snowden or
Snowden is this kind or that kind of a person. I also think Europe's
reaction to how the spying affected them has been very important as
well. In the US it has made some difference, but in Europe it seems to
be stronger. Obviously on some level the governments in Europe are being
duplicitous. They knew about some of it, but now that they have it
revealed publicly the governments are trying to back off from it.
WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have been aiding Edward Snowden in his
quest to escape US authorities. You represent Assange. Are you also
representing Edward Snowden now? No, we don't represent Edward Snowden.
Julian has taken obviously a very principled position on Edward
Snowden. As you said he has been giving him advice as well as having
somebody from WikiLeaks accompany him, Sarah Harrison. What would you
advise Snowden to do if you were his attorney? I might have started by
going to a different country than China and Hongkong to begin with. I
might have gone to Venezuela. And now the last place I would come is the
United States. If you see how Bradley Manning has been treated: He is
probably going to go to jail for a very long time. And you saw his jail
conditions and the unfairness of his trail and you see that Julian
Assange is really essentially being kept in an embassy, mostly, in fact
entirely in my view, out of fears of coming to the United States,
getting no bail, and being held incommunicado and getting an unfair
trial. So the best advice I could ever give Edward Snowden right now is
stay out of the United States. What message does the verdict against
Bradley Manning send to your client Julian Assange? WikiLeaks and Julian
Assange were referenced throughout the trial. Everyday you went there
there was some way they wanted to denigrate WikiLeaks and Assange or say
that they were essentially co-conspirators of Bradley Manning. And
that's an effort to try and differentiate for the public consumption in
the United States WikiLeaks and Julian Assange from the New York Times.
Because they know they have a problem. While they may want to get
publishers on espionage, right now at least it seems to be unacceptable
to do so in the United States. So the only way they can think about
getting WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is to somehow say they are not
journalists, they are not publishers, they are not like the New York
Times. That was a frightening part of the trial, because they are
clearly trying to go after Assange and WikiLeaks. So the message of the
trial is that now - assuming they are arguing that somehow Julian
Assange and WikiLeaks are co-conspirators with Bradley Manning - they
have convicted one part of the conspiracy. Had they not, it of course
would have been a much more difficult case against WikiLeaks. Just to
clarify: Since journalists have never been prosecuted for espionage in
the US before, you think that the sealed indictment that is widely
assumed to exist against Assange will essentially claim that WikiLeaks
and Assange are not journalists to justify prosecuting him for
espionage. Correct? Yes. They are going to try and say that Julian
Assange is an activist and that they don't fit the definition of what at
least the powers that be consider as journalists. Even some of the
major media have tried to distance themselves from Julian Assange. They
will make an effort to try and make it acceptable to the people in the
United States that they can go after a publisher. Julian Assange has
been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for over a year now.
How optimistic are you that this won't be his fate for the foreseeable
future? Optimistic - I don't know. He thinks he won't be there another
year. That is what he says publicly. The key for Julian Assange is to
figure out a way to get a guarantee from Sweden and/or the UK that he
will not be taken immediately to the United States when he leaves that
embassy. If we get guarantees from one or both of those countries, that
will make a huge difference. His problem is not Sweden, in the sense
that the allegations having to do with sexual misconduct are something
he is willing to answer, glad to answer, has offered the Swedish to come
to the embassy in London to answer those. But the problem for him is if
he goes to Sweden, almost surely they have a one-way ticket to the
United States from there. So he is just going to have to wait it out. Do
I anticipate it going on a very long time? I hope not. He has already
done a year. He has been very productive in that year as we know, so he
is continuing to work and operate from that embassy. But let's just wait
and see what happens. But how likely is it that Sweden, but also
Britain with its close ties to the US, will ever give him a guarantee
not to extradite him to the US? So far they haven't done that yet. The
UK is close to the United States, but so is Sweden. Sweden essentially
does what the United States wants as well. So both countries have a
problem in that respect. And we saw in the case of Edward Snowden what
it really takes to stand up to the United States. Ed Snowden essentially
had to go to a country that was willing to take on the United States.
And Russia at least, was willing in large parts to do so. What do you
think Snowden's fate will be? My hopes for Edward Snowden are that he is
able to go to a country that he wants to go to that will give him
asylum. And the one that right now looks the most likely is Venezuela.
The problem for Ed Snowden is how does he get from Russia to Venezuela
without the US pushing the plane down in some fashion. So that's where
he is. At the same time, at least he is a free man compared to what he
would be in the United States, in an underground prison here.
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