In this extraordinary fifth installment of “Live on the Fly – Julian Assange: Countdown to Freedom,” Randy Credico speaks with Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and professor at Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights; Lauri Love, who successfully avoided extradition to the U.S.; and John Kiriakou, former CIA analyst and case officer who blew the whistle on the official CIA torture program.

• Nils, among other revelations, cuts through the disinformation and lays out the truth regarding torture, unjust imprisonment and Julian’s case, including the smear campaign wrapped in trumped-up rape allegations out of Sweden.
• Lauri speaks on how he successfully avoided extradition to the U.S.
• And John—while noting that the United Nations has declared solitary confinement as it is practiced in the U.S. to be a form of torture—describes his own incarceration in the U.S. and how British courts have refused to extradite people to the U.S. because of the nature of its prison system.

Prof. Nils Melzer is the Human Rights Chair of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow.

Prof. Melzer has held many high-level international positions regarding human rights and torture and is the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment since Nov. 1, 2016.

On May 9, 2019, Nils visited Julian at Belmarsh prison and has campaigned strongly against Assange’s unjust and inhumane treatment. [See his full bio at Global Lawyers and Physicians.]

Lauri Love is a British-Finnish security researcher and political activist who fended off extradition to the United States almost two years ago, changing UK law in the process.

Three U.S. federal court districts had wanted to get their hands on Mr. Love and put him away for 100 years for what they alleged to have been his role in the protests that followed the death of internet pioneer Aaron Swartz.

His case—which he won—became a cause célèbre in the UK, echoing similar protest following the threatened extradition of security expert Gary McKinnon years earlier. The UK-U.S. extradition treaty remains enormously controversial in the UK.

John Kiriakou is a former CIA analyst and case officer, former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and counterterrorism consultant, and first whistleblower of the official CIA torture program. While employed by the CIA, he was involved in critical counterterrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but refused to be trained in so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

In 2007, three years after leaving the CIA, Kiriakou was interviewed by Brian Ross on ABC News, and became the first insider to confirm that the agency waterboarded detainees as official U.S. policy approved at the highest levels of the government. Five years later, he became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies, not whistleblowers.

Sentenced in 2013 to 30 months in federal prison, he was released in February of 2015. John Kiriakou is the sole CIA agent to go to jail in connection with the U.S. torture program, despite the fact that he never tortured anyone. [See his full bio at the Government Accountability Project.]

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Randy Credico, host of Live on the Fly, is a political satirist, civil rights activist and former director of The William Mosea Kunstler Fund For Racial Justice. Randy has an uncanny knack for circumventing mainstream media disinformation and official stonewalling to bring you live-audio debriefings and analysis from lawyers, journalists, whistle blowers, organizers and activists who are fighting to protect Assange from a lifetime sentence behind the bars of a U.S. maximum security penitentiary.

Randy visited Julian at the Ecuadoran embassy in London and is actively coordinating public support for him in the U.S. and abroad. Because Randy is adept at evading news blackouts and cutting through official stonewalling, Live on the Fly delivers gripping live-audio debriefings and analyses from the defense attorneys, witnesses, journalists, activists and many more.

Nathan Fuller is director of the Courage Foundation which runs Julian Assange’s public defense campaign at defend.wikileaks.org.

Courage supports whistle blowers and other journalistic sources who risk life or liberty to make significant contributions to the historical record. Before Courage, Nathan covered Chelsea Manning’s military court martial for the Chelsea Manning Support Network.

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Prior and returning guests to Live on the Fly include renowned investigative journalist and documentarian John Pilger; investigative journalists Stefania Maurizi and Max Blumenthal; animal rights activist and environmentalist Pamela Anderson; whistle blowers Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Coleen Rowley and ex NYPD Detective Frank Serpico; whistle blower, human rights activist and former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray and many more.

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