💧Mary Kostakidis Profile picture
Sep 28, 2020 32 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Extradition September hearing Day 14 (16 inl 2 Covid)

On the video link waiting to cross to court.

Expect to be back to US prison conditions today.
Yancey Ellis is an EDVA lawyer who will focus on pre-trial conditions, another US lawyer Joel Sickler on post-conviction work.
Hard to believe there are a mere 13 of us on the video link around the world, other than the few journalists in the adjacent court room at the Old Bailey
Lewis catches himself on the screen & takes the opportunity to pat down his hair. In these moments each day we see the lawyers & court officials put on their ties.
As forecast, US lawyer Yancey Ellis is first up on video.
Stella is in the corner & catches JA as he walks in behind the glass
Judge wants to deal first up with the press decision, asks for the rep.
She has found in favour of Defence, rejecting the press application for the medical statements.
Fitzgerald says Defence is happy with the document obtained regarding the razor incident to be released. The judge says she has yet to rule on whether that evidence will be permitted/accepted & she will deal with that afterwards.
Judge says one medical statement which was read in court, that of Dr Humphries (possibly one of those we could not hear..), can be released.
Judge is still reading her lengthy decision on the press request..
Her view is these details of his private life do not need to be disclosed
It’s 5 am for Yancey Ellis.
Fitzgerald: Ellis has made 2 statements. Holds a PhD in law, worked as a public defender in Alexandria & now in private practise & has clients in X block at the prison.
Ellis: JA would be held in X block pre trial, there is no other place to house them...
Ellis: Manning & Mannafort were held there pre trial.
JA would be held in the (ADSEG..?) unit referred to as X block where there are 4 - 6 cells. The cell is small 50ft or less, there is a shelf with a blanket on top and a small sink. They get 1-2 hours outside but the second..
.. hour can be in the middle of the night so not taken up.
If there are other inmates in that block, it’s not possible to communicate thru the cells, even shouting & you would never be outside with another prisoner.
Fitzgerald asks him to comment on Kromberg assertion that prisoners can communicate between cells.
Ellis: he hasn’t tried it, I can’t communicate with clients unless the food hatch is opened & you have to request that, so it’s not possible for prisoners to communicate - that’s..
..The point of being kept there. It is solitary confinement. The courts defer to the jail on how to house inmates most securely so this is not possible to change. These are the basic minimum restrictions. SAMs deals with other restrictions as well dealing with phone calls etc..
Fitzgerald- your clients were not under SAMs, could they make calls?
Ellis: you can make calls during your break.
Ellis can’t comment on SAMs restrictions.
On psychological disability: no doctor at the jail, part time access to psychiatrist so delays in consultations to alter ..
.. Medication, it’s basically to ensure you are functioning. For suicidal inmates they can be temporarily taken to another unit where they can be monitored.
It’s difficult to find someone within the prison to give you access to the block.
Lewis: you say Kromberg’s evidence is inaccurate or incomplete.
How many prisoners are held there?
Ellis: 300 or so, but only 4-6 in X block.
Lewis: your comments come from your clients & visits.
Have you interviewed the prison warden or staff or psychiatrist?
Ellis: no
Lewis: you’ve given one side of the picture.
Ellis: ..that there are two sides to every story? (Straight face)
Lewis: yes
Ellis: sure.
Lewis plowing thru Kromberg .. asking Ellis about his knowledge of good compliance in jail with policies.
Ellis politely say in effect , so what.
Ellis: they have a Togo’s track record in actual completed suicides ( I guess he means limited successful suicides).
Lewis: how would JA be assessed for housing?
Ellis: I have never been granted access to such docs.
But I believe he would be held in administrative segregation.
Lewis asks about programs available for inmates.
Ellis: The jail doesn’t run individual programs for those held in segregation.
Lewis: he can meet with his lawyers any time
Ellis: no he can’t.
Lewis: you don’t include time spent with lawyers..
Ellis says you don’t see your lawyers that often so essentially it doesn’t make much
...difference. You would have to be given special permission to go to the library but only when no one else is there.
If you have a mental health issue you can be sent to a hospital..
Lewis attempting to show the witness isn’t as knowledgeable as Kromberg, asks specifically..
..again about JA, Ellis replying that high profile inmates are not kept with others, nor would he get any special treatment, no matter who his lawyers were or how many he had.
Fitzgerald re-examines Ellis on the basis of his knowledge & view JA will be in X block. Ellis says X block is the only option.
Fitzgerald asks whether there was a problem with Manning in X block
Ellis: well publicised & some not publicised suicide attempts in X block. Manning was considered female so could not be held in X block.
Ellis: there is nowhere else in the jail
Judge says JA has been in the general prison here, why would he be in segregation in the US?
Ellis: high profile plus mental problem, in order to maintain security in the jail, they segregate these inmates.
Ellis finished.

Discussion about dealing with a statement from a Mr Guardella (sp?) - break to consider how to deal with it. This statement has a risen from the cross examination of Kopelman. It may be regarding the razor incident.
We’re back. No. Another 10 mins to see if they can get the next witness earlier than proposed.
Judge back but still waiting for witness..

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More from @MaryKostakidis

Nov 24
Here is @SlezakPeter - academic and son of Holocaust survivors - powerful speech at the Sydney rally yesterday (1 of 3)

‘I’m among very many Jews, here and around the world to protest what Israel is doing in our name, and I’m proud to join you every week for over a year in solidarity with Palestinians.
 
I want to give a shout-out to those each week holding the banner “Jews Against the Occupation.” Our presence and our solidarity refute the smear that these rallies are antisemitic Jew-hate rallies. I know what antisemitism is and it's not here EVER at these rallies.
 
My mother survived the WW2 Nazi Auschwitz extermination camp, and she always asked why was the world silent? Why did they look away from the genocide of the Jews and do nothing? Today we know the answer as our government and media look away and do nothing for the Palestinians. 
 
Well, in the last few days we have seen the landmark decision by the International Court of Justice – the ICC – an important victory for accountability:
 
The ICC has issued warrants for the arrest of two of Israel’s leaders – Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant. Both are charged as perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 
 
Above all, the ICC arrest warrants confirm that those of us protesting here each week, and especially the university student encampments, were right all along. 
 
The war crimes charged against Netanyahu include:
 
• Starvation of the civilian population of Gaza.
 
• depriving them medicine, fuel and electricity.
 
 • military attacks against the civilian population.
 
• murder and other inhumane acts against the civilian population.
 
• blocking humanitarian aid. 
 
• the destruction of the civilian population in Gaza –  which is the very definition of genocide.

Australia as a member of the Rome Statute and ICC is legally under an obligation to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they arrive here. However, Australia is yet to confirm whether or not it will comply with arrest warrants issued for these indicted war criminals…
Cont
2/3
‘The Weekend Australian newspaper (Nov 24, 2004) refers to the “silence by Foreign Minister Penny Wong” who is “pretending to sit on the fence”. And The ABC Headline says “Australia tip-toes around ICC decision” issuing only an opaque motherhood statements.
 
What is she waiting for? 
Well, she is probably ambivalent because in March Albanese and Wong were also referred to the ICC for being complicit in the Gaza genocide in a claim co-signed by over 100 Australian lawyers.
Of course, Zionists in Australia are apoplectic and having a melt-down echoing Netanyahu’s excuses:
 
• Predictably, using the usual get-out-of-jail-free card, he called it an “anti-semitic decision.” 
 
Even in Israel’s newspaper Ha’aretz the headline says:
 
"Netanyahu Brought the ICC Ruling on Himself and Now He's Whining About Antisemitism".
 
There is a great deal of deliberate, cynical confusion about this. Let me be clear: As the Jewish historian Norman Finkelstein has said, Israel is a rogue, lunatic state. It is not antisemitic to say Fuck Israel and Fuck Zionism: A guy was arrested on Bondi Beach for wearing this on his T-shirt.
 
•  Netanyahu said “No war is more just than the war Israel has been waging in Gaza” because Israel’s destruction of Gaza is in SELF-DEFENCE !!!
 
This is DECEITFUL, DELUSIONAL BULLSHIT
 
In international law, it’s not actually OK to starve children to death for self-defence!!
 
We have all seen the pictures – mile after mile of residential cities reduced to rubble. What kind of sick mind can consider the complete destruction of Gaza as “self-defence” – targeting Hamas militants hiding behind human shields. 
 
Since October 7 last year, Gaza has been transformed from the largest open-air prison in the world to the LARGEST MASS-GRAVE.

And the OTHER Albanese, the wonderful UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, points out that Israel has no right to defend itself against resistance emanating from the territory it controls under occupation. 
 
On the contrary, according to international law it is the people under occupation who have the right to resist, including the right to armed resistance. 
 
Israel has dropped more bombs on Gaza than the Allied bombing in World War 2 on Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined! More bombs on Gaza in a week than the US dropped on Afghanistan in one year ...
 
In 1967 during the Vietnam War, American scholar Noam Chomsky said something relevant today:
 
“With no further information than this, a person who has not lost his senses must realize that the war is an overwhelming atrocity.”
 
The assault on Gaza is not a “war” but a cowardly act of terrorism by the most sophisticated military force against a defenceless population. 
 
It’s important to recognize that the excessive, disproportionate military force against civilians – mass murder – is deliberate – it is official Israeli military policy. It’s actually called the DAHIYA DOCTRINE – GOOGLE IT!! ..
Cont
3 of 3
Doctors have been speaking out about the horrors they witnessed. 
 
One American Doctor said “Every Day I was there I saw children shot in the head. That's not an accident. That's deliberate targeting of children for death. That's murder." SHAME. 
 
Another doctor, British surgeon, Nizam Mamode, recently returned from Gaza, and testified in front of the UK Parliament. With tears, he barely could speak. He said that Israeli drones would pick off and shoot injured civilians, including children.
 
• Netanyahu says that “Hamas attacked us UNPROVOKED…”
 
But, of course, history didn’t begin on October 7th last year.  GAZA has been under illegal, brutal BLOCKADE – since 2007.
 
In 2018 there was the peaceful protests of the Great March of Return in Gaza during which Israeli snipers killed or maimed hundreds of unarmed protesters, disabled people, nurses. 
 
Australian Human Rights expert at the UN Chris Sidoti said: “Israel’s is one of the most criminal armies in the world” because “this is a period without precedent in a war that has been going for a century.”
 
= = =
 
After arrest warrants for Netanyahu & Gallant were issued, Israeli forces escalated mass killings of civilians in Gaza. At least 9 massacres were documented
 
• A day after, at least 90 Palestinians, including 36 children, were killed.
 
Of course, Penny Wong says that there is a need “to end the cycle of violence.” 
 
What “cycle of violence”?
 
If Tel Aviv was reduced to rubble like Gaza City, Khan Yunis or Shujaiya, the world would stop the war immediately. 
 
WEST BANK
 
We must not neglect immense tragedy of the occupied West Bank
 
Just since October 7, Israeli forces and settlers have killed OVER 700 people, including at least 167 children. More than 6,000 people have been injured.
 
There is NO HAMAS in the West Bank but for years, Israel has been killing on average two kids a week.
 
In July, Senator Penny Wong said that the Australian Government has imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on seven Israeli settlersfor their violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. 
 
That’s PATHETIC! 
 
The ENTIRE Israeli Government is a bunch of terrorists and extremist criminals – They are guilty of immense, obscene violence against Palestinians SINCE 1948.
 
In the West Bank, there are now over 700,000 Israeli settlers in vast cities all illegal according to international law …
 
Protected by the Israeli military, they are rampaging around uprooting millions of olive trees, destroying water wells and torching cars. Israel has demolished 60,000 Palestinian houses in the West Bank. 
 
ICJ Ruling
 
On 19 July 2024 the ICJ reiterated the illegality of the entire Israel occupation of the West Bank and GAZA. The decision calls for dismantling of settlements and reparations.
 
The Court specifically said that states like Australia should not recognise Israel’s unlawful presence in occupied territory, nor should they render aid or assistance in maintaining it.
 
So far, Australia has done next to nothing
 
BDS
 
However, states must immediately suspend all investment, trade and scientific, technical and technological cooperation in these areas and engage in a systematic review of all economic, financial, academic, diplomatic and political ties with Israel.
 
We must recall our ambassador from Tel Aviv; 
We must expel Israel’s ambassador from Australia; 

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA
 
Finally, it’s important for me to say something about our chant heard at rallies around the world – “From the River to the Sea …”
 
The APOLOGISTS for ISRAEL’s crimes – including Prime Minster Albanese - claim that this slogan is antisemitic or even a call for the annihilation of Israel.
 
But The charter of the governing Likud party says there will be no Palestinian state between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.
 
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly, publicly rejected the possibility of a Palestinian State…
Woops, one more.. cont
Read 4 tweets
Jul 14
In an effort to silence me the Zionist Federation have filed a complaint with the HRC for racial vilification, aided by a reporter who can’t do his own research.

Having first used the discredited Anti-Defamation League (they should be called the Anti-Free-Speech-for-anyone-we-do-not-agree-with-League), and the CEO of a company that trains IDF soldiers to become propagandists - to improve Israel’s image to the world (because the country is an apartheid state having stolen land, ‘mowed the lawn’ with gratuitous killing of Palestinians for decades, tortured detainees held often without charge, herded a couple of million people into a ghetto/open air prison, then launched a genocide), to attempt to frame me as a rape and Holocaust denier.
This because I have been sharing the reports of extremely highly regarded independent journalists who have written about the absence of credible evidence the claims of ‘systemic, widespread rape’ by Hamas on Oct 7. The Beheaded Babies, the 40 burnt babies, the genital mutilations, the systemic rape were all unsubstantiated or proven false. The Israelis claim the have footage and photos but the latest U.N. investigation made no finding of rape.
To be clear, I have never said there was No Rape. It is something I could never say - it would be a nonsense for anyone to make such a definitive statement.
Yet the double page story by Chip Le Grand makes no reference to a)my series of tweets about rape over a period of months that make clear I’m referring to systemic rape. The offending tweet is one where I put it would be counter to their mission to spend time on rape because they would jeopardise their mission which was to grab hostages and try to stay alive for long enough to escape. They would have to be pretty dumb to risk it. As it turns out, as I proffered, the latest U.N. investigation found no evidence that would allow them to conclude there had been rape. But Chip Le Grand reports none of this.
His story also took umbrage at my comment that we can’t know how many Israel deaths were caused by the IDF on Oct 7. Many independent commentators are now saying precisely that, including Gideon Levy. Even Piers Morgan can’t accept the Israelis know for a fact that a considerable number of Israelis were not killed on that day, because of the Hannibal Directive. And the. There is the indiscriminate nature of the shelling. There was more than ‘a kernel of truth’. ‘No car should make it back to Gaza’ means all the hostages being killed for a start.
At the risk of boring you, we now move on to The Sequel. 1/
Today I received another email from Chip, who is very well informed about what the Zionist lobby gets up to on a Sunday.

Good morning Mary.

Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive Alon Cassuto is today lodging a complaint against you with the Australian Human Rights Commission under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

The complaint relates to your Twitter post from 4 January, when you reposted a link to a speech by Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, in which he told Jewish people living in Israel and the occupied territories:

"Here, it is going to be very difficult for you. If you want to be secure, if you want to feel secure, you have an American passport, go back to the United States. You have a British passport, go back to the UK. Here you don't have a future, from the river to the sea the land of Palestine is for the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people only.''

You prefaced the link to the speech with the comment: "The Israeli govt getting some of its own medicine. Israel has started something it can't finish with this genocide.''

Cassuto says that Nasrallah's speech calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel and the occupied territories and alleges that, by sharing a link to it with your 30,000-odd Twitter followers, you disseminated hate speech against Israelis and Jewish people.

The ZFA says that through this and more than 100 other Twitter posts since October 7, you have misused your standing and profile as a highly respected former newsreader and face of our multicultural broadcaster, to share extreme propaganda and hateful material.

Could I please ask you:

Why did you share Nasrallah's speech?

Do you agree that material you have shared on Twitter since October 7 vilifies Israelis and Jewish people?

Is there any other comment you would like to make?

Thanks Mary. The ZFA announced earlier today they are holding a 2pm press conference to discuss this matter. I will publish a first take story at 2pm and would like to include your response.

Otherwise, I can update the story anytime before 5pm to include your comments.

I'll also give you a call.

Best regards,

Chip.
 
Chip Le Grand
Chief reporter 
 
2/ .. see my reply
As I was out with my grandchildren, I had not replied, so he called me and I responded but decided to put it in writing when I was free to do so:

‘As I said on the phone I believe it is important to know what both sides are saying in a conflict.

With regards to Israel inviting escalation by launching a genocide, I responded similarly when Israel retaliated against Hamas.

You might equally say if you were being briefed by Palestinians instead of Zionists Chip, was I intimating that Hamas or the Palestinian people deserved what they got in response.
The point is when one side acts in an extreme way, it invites retaliation. Sadly that is the case. (Cont.)
Read 10 tweets
Jun 24
BREAKING:
#Assange Agrees to Plead Guilty in Exchange for Release, Ending Standoff With U.S.
NYTimes (thread)
‘..agreed to plead guilty on Monday to a single felony count of illegally disseminating national security material in exchange for his release from a British prison, ending his long and bitter standoff with the United States.
Mr. Assange, 52, was granted his request to appear before a federal judge at one of the more remote outposts of the federal judiciary, the courthouse in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, according to a court filing made public late Monday. It was a fitting twist in the case against Mr. Assange, who doggedly opposed extradition to the U.S. mainland.’
The islands are a United States commonwealth in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
Read 4 tweets
Dec 29, 2023
How the U.S. has fueled Israel's decades-long war on Palestinians - Rashid Khalidi, Los Angeles Times 🧵

‘Whoever the settlers were and wherever they came from, with whatever connections to the land, the resistance to them would have been essentially the same as that of the Irish, Algerians, Native Americans, Zulus or Libyans to intruders bent on expelling them and taking the land. Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist Zionism that produced the Likud Party, stated bluntly: “Every native population in the world resists colonists.” And as Edward Said noted, it was the particular misfortune of the Palestinians to be the victims of victims’

latimes.com/opinion/story/…
‘This process of settler colonialism produced the dispossession of a large part of Palestine’s native population and the theft of their lands and property. This was achieved through the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians during Israel’s establishment in 1948 (over 55% of the total Arab population of Palestine at the time), and of over 250,000 in 1967, with none of them allowed to return. This phased ethnic cleansing was essential in order to turn a majority-Arab country into a majority-Jewish state. It could not have been done in any other way, since it proved to be impossible to “spirit” the Palestinians “discreetly” out of the country, a desire that Theodor Herzl confided to his diary. For the last 56 years, these same practices of colonization and dispossession have proceeded inexorably in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.’
‘The United States has regarded the military occupation of these territories and their gradual annexation and absorption into Israel with studied indifference for more than half a century. This contrasts glaringly with its muscular response to Russian occupation of part of Ukraine for a much shorter period. It is hard to give credence to U.S. claims about supporting self-determination and freedom for Ukraine while it has provided decades of essential support to Israel for its occupation of Arab territories’
Read 7 tweets
Aug 8, 2023
In an article on the future of the US alliance in the Australian Journal of International Affairs, the Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of the United States and of #AUKUS in the Parliament, Luke Gosling, says moving from ‘interoperability’ to ‘interchangeability’ as @… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
He cites a Loewy Poll that shows the majority of Australians support the alliance but Gosling worries that an even greater majority fear entanglement in a war. “Still, it’s heartening 76% of Australians believe the US would defend Australia..”.

This is a failure of the our… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The article goes on to say that to shore up support for AUKUS itself & address the concerns of sceptics, the US Studies Centre proposed an annual statement to parliament to define a positive vision of what the alliance stands for & Marles delivered the first, on the alliance and… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Read 8 tweets
Apr 16, 2023
FM Penny Wong will address @PressClubAust today to respond to criticism of her and of AUKUS by Paul Keating.

She will also have to explain the shift in her position since moving from Opposition to Govt, pointed out starkly by Hugh White in The Monthly.

The Stepped up… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
She is spinning the US battle to maintain hegemony as a battle to preserve multipolarity. Gobsmacking hutzpah.
The US is going to help us keep the peace in the region. Such is its track record…?
Read 13 tweets

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