From Consortium News
Co-written by Randy Credico
Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who now reports for La Repubblica and has worked on WikiLeaks' releases of secret documents, complains that her recent interview with Julian Assange was distorted by the Guardian, the Washington Post and others to assign Assange a pro-Trump agenda.
The Guardian recently "amended" its reporting on her interview with Assange, but for the feisty, seasoned reporter it wasn't nearly enough. "I appreciate the Guardian amending the article, but at the same time the damage is done and I'm not convinced it was a solution," she said.
Maurizi is going to court in September in Great Britain to fight for the release of key documents that related directly to the process of Assange's treatment and his pursuit by various governments collaborating to shut his operations down.
"This is the first time that a reporter has tried to get access to these files," she said in a rare interview on Aug. 1, "which tells you something about the state of journalism these days."
Before joining la Repubblica, Maurizi spent 10 years working for the Italian newsmagazine l'Espresso. Maurizi also partnered with Glenn Greenwald to reveal the Edward Snowden files as they pertain to Italy. She is author most recently of Dossier WikiLeaks.
Dennis Bernstein: Tell us about your multiple struggles to get key documents that will shed light on the entire Assange affair.
Stefania Maurizi: I have spent the past two years struggling to access the documents on the Julian Assange case. I was finally forced to go to court and sue the UK government to get them to hand over the documents. This is the first time that a reporter has tried to get access to these files, which tells you something about the state of journalism these days.
Dozens of newspapers have talked with Assange over the past 10 years and yet no one has attempted to get full access to these documents about the case. Here we have a high-profile publisher who is being arbitrarily detained by two of the most respected Western democracies, Sweden and the United Kingdom, and no one is trying to get to these documents. It is incredible to me.
Randy Credico: Are any newspapers in London writing amicus briefs on your behalf?
SM: Honestly, I don't know. I can imagine there is some embarrassment about the fact that no newspaper has yet asked for these documents.
DB: What kinds of information do you expect to be in these documents? What could be the case in terms of freeing Julian Assange?
SM: First of all, I want to access the full correspondence between the UK authorities and the Swedish prosecutors. In 2015 I filed a Freedom of Information Act request and I obtained some documents from the Swedish authorities which made very clear that the UK put pressure on the Swedish authorities not to question Mr. Assange in London, which he and his lawyers had requested, but rather to extradite him to Sweden. This is why we have been in this legal quagmire for five years now with Julian stuck in arbitrary detention at the Ecuadorian embassy.
Julian Assange has never refused questioning. He has fought against extradition because he knows that extradition to Sweden would result in extradition to the United States. So the UK authorities advised the Swedish prosecutor against questioning him in London, which would have avoided this arbitrary detention.
I know for certain that there are thousands of documents pertaining to this case. I want to be able to access any documents pertaining to the exchange between the US and UK authorities and I want to access any documents about the exchange between the UK and Ecuador. I believe that there is a strong public interest in shedding light on this important and high-profile case. Can you imagine a high-profile editor in Europe under arbitrary detention? And yet no one is asking for the documents in this case!
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