Thread by @althecat

Everything about this @ABC news report is fishy. It was rushed into publication on Friday Night shortly after the #Unity4J vigil was started. The video in the header is more than a year old & only today did they add the audio of the IV with Assange's lawyer. /1

https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1026568632933998594

The story itself is full of blatant misinformation which might as well have been written by the CIA or State Dept, the rebuttal from Assange's lawyer - filmed last week - was added today to the already published story so clumsily that it breaks the layout. /2

Two video tweets have been added, the one above and this one, which has been tweeted three times.

https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1026553625886113792

/3

The production values of the 90 seconds of video that have been published make it clear that there is a full interview with @suigenerisjen which has not been published nor broadcast yet. /4

ABC' IV with @suigenerisjen most probably was conducted Thursday or Friday, this @BBCNewsnight IV was broadcast Thurs.

Why did @ABC instead publish an out of date contextually irrelevant video when they had a fresh IV with the subject of the headline. /5

Notably the @BBCNewsnight piece that preceded this IV was also controversial and contained multiple obvious prejudicial factual errors. It was reported by @JohnSweeneyRoar who had days earlier tweeted in a deeply offensive manner about @JulianAssange

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1025116397377138688

/6

The @JohnSweenyRoar hit piece can be viewed here >>

But the big difference between that and the @ABC effort bylined to @AJDukakis and @meekwire is that the balance from @suigenerisjen is absent. But there are several other ways in which it is odd. /7

Firstly the fact -the subject of this thread- that high quality footage of the interview was shot but not used in the original story. The footage that was used on Twitter and Facebook was only used yesterday afternoon. /8

Then there is the fact that while the story was featured in ABC's "Start Here" morning podcast yesterday, audio of @suigenerisjen was similarly not used - even though clearly it was available. abcnews.go.com/US/start-here-… /9

Then there are the numerous factual inaccuracies in the original story that were highlighted in the following tweets from @kittyhundal who participated (like me) in the #Unity4J vigil over the weekend. /10

https://twitter.com/kittyhundal/status/1026804445416280064

.@ABC News Assange Story Factual Error #2... /11

https://twitter.com/kittyhundal/status/1026805066966003722

.@ABC News Assange Story Factual Error #3... /12

https://twitter.com/kittyhundal/status/1026806248404967426

.@ABC News Assange Story Factual Error #4 .. /13

https://twitter.com/kittyhundal/status/1026806856977502209

.@ABC News Assange Story Factual Error #5... /14

https://twitter.com/kittyhundal/status/1026807768676589569

And those are not the only errors in the story, This paragraph is also deeply misleading. There is no "presumption" by any legal authorities that @JulianAssange will be handed over to U.S. authorities by the U.K. if he is asked to leave the embassy.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1026413754274082817

/15

And if the full interview of @suigenerisjen were released I am certain that this is what she probably said. The expectation is that a long court case would ensue, and there is a concern that @JulianAssange **might** be held in custody pending its resolution. /16

In normal circumstances the probability would not be considered high for his detention. On humanitarian grounds doing so may be a form of cruel and unusual punishment given he has already been effectively detained as a person subject to extradition proceedings for 8 years,. /17

Why @ABC is presuming @JulianAssange will be handed over to U.S. authorities is a matter of mystery that they ought to explain. And in the meantime @ABC should be required to release the full video of the interview that they are presumably suppressing. /18