political asylum. on wednesday, wikileaks released a database containing half a million u.s. diplomatic cables from 1978. >> 1978 actually set in progress many of the regional elements geopolitical elements, that are playing out today. for example, 1978 was the beginning of the iranian revolution, the push against the shaw was started in 1978 demonstrations similarly in a corolla -- nicaragua. in 1978, started the popular form as a result of the killing of a newspaper editor. amy: and we will hear the inside story about why the united states forced bolivian president evo morales' plane to land in 2013 in austria during the hunt for edward snowden. the story may surprise you. someone was listening to julian assange's phone calls. >> the u.s. should apologize to evo morales to france. they should apologize for not following the law that we cannot predict when other countries will follow the law. amy: today, julian assange for the hour. all of that and more coming up. welcome to democracy now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. saudi-led airstrikes have killed at least 80 people in yemen, marking the deadliest day of the two-month bombing campaign to date. the strikes battered the yemeni capital sanaa and the bakeel al-meer area near the saudi border, where residents said at least 40 people were killed, most of them civilians. arab planes and ships blasted yemen's largest military port in the city of hodeida, marking the worst attack on yemen's navy since saudi arabia launched its offensive on iranian-aligned houthis rebels in march. saudi-led planes targeted a car thought to be carrying houthi leaders in central sanaa, but an eyewitness said the strike destroyed homes and injured residents. >> this is shrapnel they hit working men, not targets, not military bases. we must distinguish between the two. we must maintain our good senses. this was an attack on everything. this is an attack on the whole nation. what fall to visit of the children and women inside the homes? amy: concerns are mounting over the fate of a us citizen held in a yemeni military prison after a saudi airstrike hit the compound where his attorneys believe he is imprisoned. the guardian reports the uk human rights group reprieve has asked the obama administration to seek proof of life for sharif mobley, a father of three from new jersey who has been detained in yemen since 2010. the self-proclaimed islamic state has released new footage showing the renowned ancient ruins in the syrian city of palmyra apparently unharmed. despite international fears after isil seized the city last week, activists say isil has vowed to spare the structures and destroy only the statues on wednesday, the reportedly shot dead early two dozen people supporting the syrian regime. kentucky senator and republican presidential candidate rand paul has blamed the republican party for the existence of the self-proclaimed islamic state. speaking on msnbc, paul said fellow republicans like senator lindsey graham. >> isis grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms and discriminate lee and most of the arms were snatched up by isis. it would have made isis's job easier. they created these people. isis is oliver libya because the same hawks in my party loved hillary clinton in libya. they just wanted more of it. libya is a failed state and it is a disaster. iraq is a failed state. everything they've talked about they been wrong about for 20 years. amy: the death toll from a heat wave in india has topped 1400. scorching heat expected to continue in the hardest hit southern state of andhra pradesh. the death toll has been 1000 alone in that state. the justice department has unveiled a sweeping corruption indictment against 14 soccer officials and marketing executives accused of exchanging at least $150 million in bribes and "corrupting the business of worldwide soccer." among those arrested in connection with the probe is jack warner, former vice president of soccer's governing body, fifa, who is accused of taking a $10 million bribe to cast his ballot for south africa to host the 2010 world cup. u.s. attorney general loretta lynch said the corruption dates back to at least 1991, when soccer officials, including the then-presidents of two regional soccer confederations under fifa, solicited bribes from sports marketers for commercial rights to their soccer tournaments. the indictment lynch unsealed features 47 counts, including racketeering charges typically reserved for drug cartels and the mafia. >> the 47 count indictment against these individuals includes charges of racketeering , wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy spanning two decades. in short, these individuals through these organizations engaged in bribery to decide who would televise games, where the games would be held, and who would run the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide. one of the most popular sports around the globe. amy: the long time fifa sepp blatter is not under investigation. the public and governor pete ricketts had vetoed the measure, but lawmakers from both parties overrode his veto by a vote of 30 to 19. independent nebraska senator ernie chambers celebrated the move. >> had not the conservative faction decided that it is time for a change, there is no way that what is happening today would be taking place. this will be a shining moment for the nebraska legislature. amy: nebraska is the nineteenth state to ban executions and the first conservative state to do so since north dakota in 1973. in a statement, the death penalty information center said -- "the efforts and arguments of nebraska conservatives are part of an emerging trend in the republican party, evidenced by the involvement of conservative republicans in legislative efforts to repeal the death penalty in other states, such as kansas, kentucky, south dakota montana, and wyoming." norway is divesting from coal -- a federal appeals court has struck down an arkansas law banning abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy. the ruling upholds an earlier decision against the 2013 law, which was among the most extreme abortion bans in the country. in a statement, the aclu said -- "this law was about banning abortion, plain and simple. other states looking to pass similar laws should pay close attention." former pennsylvania senator rick santorum has launched his bid second for the republican presidential nomination. santorum was the runner-up in the race in after winning the 2012 support of right-wing, evangelical christians. santorum announced his bid at penn united technologies, a company which makes equipment for the oil and gas industries. >> working families don't need another president tied to big government or big money. and today is the day -- today is the day we're going to begin to fight back. i am proud to stand here among you and for you, the american workers who have sacrificed so much to announce that i am running for president of the united states. amy: the republican presidential field is expected to get crowded today as george pataki is expected to announce his bid. u.s. army whistleblower chelsea manning has marked five years since her arrest by publishing her most detailed account of her trial and imprisonment to date. writing in the guardian, manning describes how she was initially held in a "hot, desert cage" in kuwait, and threatened by navy guards with "interrogation on a brig on a u.s. cruiser off the coast of the horn of africa, or being sent to the prison camps of guantánamo bay." manning also describes her nearly year-and-a-half-long battle to receive hormone treatment for gender dysphoria . she announced her transition to living as a woman in 2013, following her sentencing to 35 years for giving secret files to wikileaks. manning also discussed her motivation for releasing the documents, including information about the wars in iraq and afghanistan. she wrote -- "once you come to realize that the coordinates in these records represent real places, that the dates are our recent history and that the numbers represent actual human lives -- with all of the love, hope, dreams, hate, fear and nightmares with which we all live -- then you cannot help but be reminded just how important it is for us to understand and, hopefully, prevent such tragedies in the future." in a moment, we will be broadcasting our hour with wikileaks founder julian assange. norway is divesting from coal over concerns about its impact on climate change. the norwegian government has reached a unanimous deal to divest as sovereign wealth fund from copies which generate more than 30% of their revenues from coal. the fund which is the largest of , its kind in the world, is made up of taxes from oil profits. the parliament is expected to formally adopt the divestment plan on june 5. the obama administration is issued new rules aimed at protecting the drinking water of millions of americans. the rules seek to end confusion about which waterways are protected on pollution under the clean water act come a specifying protection from to 60% of the nation's streams and millions of acres of wetlands which were not clearly designated before. the group environment america called the role the biggest victory for clean water in a decade while republican house speaker john boehner blasted them as "a raw and to radical power grab your co- the pentagon acknowledged it and suddenly -- accidentally sent live anthrax spores to up to nine laboratories across the united states and to a u.s. military lab in south korea. the labs were supposed to receive inactive samples to use for research, but were sent live spores instead. anthrax exposure can be fatal, but the pentagon has said there are no known infections due to the mistake. in south carolina, grand jury has indicted a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed 68-year-old african-american man in his own driveway. former north augusta police officer justin craven was indicted on a lesser, felony charge of firing his gun into an occupied vehicle, after a grand jury previously refused to indict him for voluntary manslaughter. authorities say craven chased ernest satterwhite to his home then fired repeatedly through satterwhite's car window almost immediately after he stopped in his driveway. craven claimed satterwhite reached for his gun. police have refused to release dashboard camera footage of the shooting. an indiana, womanhood your international support when she was sentenced to death at the age of 16 and was later released from prison has been found death , of an apparent suicide at the age of 45. paula cooper became the youngest person on death row in 1986 after her conviction for killing ruth pelke, an elderly bible teacher. her case drew calls to spare her life from people around the world, including the victim's grandson, bill pelke. shortly before her release for good behavior in 2013, cooper told the times of northwest indiana she looked forward to starting a new life. >> when i get out, i don't care if i have to sweep floors, wash dishes or flip hamburgers, i'm going to take whatever i can get. just to get on my feet and show people i deserve a chance. amy: paula cooper was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in indianapolis tuesday. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. five years ago this week, u.s. army whistleblower chelsea manning was arrested in kuwait and charged with leaking classified information. weeks later wikileaks published tens of thousands of internal logs from the war in afghanistan. it was one of the largest leaks in u.s. military history. major articles ran in the new york times, guardian, der spiegel and other outlets. chelsea manning, then known as bradley, and julian assange soon became household names. while manning was sentenced to 35 years in jail, assange has been living for the past three years inside ecuador's embassy in london where he has political asylum. assange faces investigations in both sweden and the united states. here in the united states a , secret grand jury is investigating wikileaks for its role in publishing the leaked afghan cables and other u.s. files. in sweden, he's wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct, though no charges have been filed. earlier this month, sweden's supreme court rejected his appeal to lift his arrest warrant. swedish prosecutors are reportedly preparing to travel to london to interview assange after refusing to do so for years. on monday, democracy now! went to london to interview join assange inside the embassy. when we went inside the embassy british police asked the ecuadorian embassy to hand our identification. that is unusual. local police are not supposed to ask people for id entering foreign embassies, so we refused. in part two of our exclusive interview, julian assange began by talking about the latest developments in the u.s. case against him. >> the latest information is on the fourth of march. we know as result of warrants that were issued to our journalists, google accounts, that the charges are espionage conspiracy to commit espionage computer hacking conversion, which is theft of government secrets. we don't know how many of each one, but this is what has been used to apply for warrants. we know there are several more warrants that google has. google has admitted publicly it is still gagged about the other warrants that a been applied. on the fourth of march, there was a case in federal court where epic, which is an electronic policy -- privacy database and washington, d.c., has been litigating to try and see whether the u.s. government is illegally surveilling our supporters. and the case has become unexpectedly important. there are some 500 information requests from the media and us that is been blocked by the u.s. government. into what has been happening with wikileaks. they have been blocked under the excuse that to release such information would be to help us resist the prosecution. and they want to use that in the prosecution and therefore, they can't release it to anyone. the fbi has admitted they have more than 42,135 pages and the fbi file, the doj file in the -- there is a doj file and a grand jury file. they're not going to release a civil sentence or single paragraph, but have to explain themselves in expanding themselves they have revealed some important things. that the investigation is being run by the doj national security division and run by the doj criminal division and their response of documents in the doj unit. we see this, the most recent from the fourth of march. importantly, we lost that case -- or rather epic lost that case to get those documents because the court accepted to release any information about the wikileaks prosecution would affect the wikileaks prosecution , that we could use this to defend ourselves. the argument used is quite incredible. so we argued that -- the argument used to restrict all the information about the pending wikileaks prosecution is quite incredible. it is that not only would any information, if released, assist us even saying we're no longer interested in that particular person but this one, but that the court doesn't have a right to itself make this determination. so the government says that we need to keep all this information secret about the wikileaks investigation. not a single sentence can be released because it would help wikileaks, it would help me. so we say, well that is absurd. surely, out of tens of thousands of pages, there is one sentence i can be released under the foia. and they say, no, we're the experts on her own investigation and that is what we say, so we say, well, we want [no audio] the government argues the court does not have a right to make this determination. this is a question of a national security fact from either it is a fact that the information held by the doj and held by the fbi about wikileaks would affect national security or not. and it is the government that is best place to determine this fact, not the court. and so in the judgment, the judge states that it is necessary to show "appropriate deference to the executives on matters of national security and, therefore, she simply going to do for to the government's claim without looking at the material at all." this is incredible, that you have judiciary -- the whole purpose of the judiciary is disney not to the for to the executive, but meant to be an independent assessor. if you look at a normal criminal case say a murder case, and the question of dna in the murder case. so the government would bring their witness and say, we believe the dna shows this person was at the murder scene. and the defense would go, we have an expert, he is much more imminent than your expert, he has done a bigger study and he says that in fact, no, this is quite incorrect, it is that you simply have incompetent procedures. in the court would allow these experts to battle it out and make a determination on which one was the most credible. that is not permitted here. the court doesn't say, lets your your expert. the court doesn't say well, the judge will look at these documents and i will judge them. rather it is necessary to show appropriate difference dish deference. all that is necessary is for the government to claim this is national security fact, information -- in the information released about wikileaks will harm the national security. any of the information released will harm national security and compromise the case. what has happened here at a much more interesting and structural level, is a frontloading -- a frontloading of the deterrent and penalty phase. a classical view of the criminal process and the deterrent process, someone is accused of something and charged with a crime and it goes to trial. you convict them or they are acquitted. let's say they are convicted. then the sentence is both the penalty and it is the deterrent. now what has happened in these whistleblowing cases is, that has been flipped. look at thomas trick them a for example, nsa whistleblower. it is been seven years. he did not go to prison at all in the end. they plead down to -- it was the pretrial process was both the deterrent, general deterrent and it was the penalty, in the same thing is happening here in the wikileaks process. we have no rights as a defendant because the formal trial hasn't started yet. the same thing as happen with me in the sims the in relation to the sweetest -- swedish case. don't even have a right to documents because you're not even a defendant. amy: and the u.s. investigation is gone on for how many years? >> for just over five years. amy: wikileaks founder julian assange speaking inside the ecuadorian embassy in london. or he has taken refuge for the past three years. coming up, julian assange will talk about the new icwatch database which recalls information publicly posted by former members of the u.s. intelligence community and hear the inside story about what is believed the u.s. forced on the plane of bolivian president evo morales in 2013 during the hunt for edward snowden. you may be surprised. stay with us. amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we return to our exclusive interview with wikileaks founder join assange. i spoke to him inside the ecuadorian embassy on memorial day where he has taken refuge for the past most three years. on wednesday, wikileaks added more than half a million u.s. diplomatic cables from 1978 to its public library of disciplines the database. the documents include diplomatic cables another diplomatic communications from and two u.s. embassies and missions in every and -- in nearly every country. i asked him to talk about significance of the documents. >> the u.s. state department cables, 1978, was a very interesting period. these cables have come through the state department system international archives and put into our system, where we now have more than 2 million cables in the collection, all indexed. 1978, very interesting time period. we have deliberately released all 400,000 at once to everyone so no one has an opportunity to jerry pick and we haven't done that, either. what we have done is identified broad areas which are very interesting. for example, 1978 actually set in progress many of the regional elements, geopolitical elements that are playing out today. for example 1978 was the beginning of the iranian revolution. it wasn't until 1979 that it succeeded, but the push against the shaw started in 1978. demonstrations and the killings in response. similarly, nicaragua 1978, the movement started in its popular form as a result of the killing of a newspaper editor and was complete within two years. afghanistan. the war period started in 1978 and hasn't stopped since. it was the soviet-from the government came in in 1978, the assassination of the previous president, the rival of the soviet special forces toward the end of the year. 1978 saw the vietnamese invasion of cambodia. you may think, that just concerns vietnam and cambodia, no, this is an important consequence of the vietnam war. and how cambodia was used and became a chinese and american proxy in relation to vietnam. so china, the u.k., the u.s. supported cambodia against the vietnamese. the vietnamese prevailed, but the conflict also led to the finalization of what had started under kissinger's relation with china. a divisive move -- a decisive move. and this war with vietnam is something that facilitated the visit to china and the eventual normalization of relations which occurred shortly after. amy: when it comes to afghanistan, in an interview with the french newspaper burzynski talked about the arming of the mojo judging saying, what is a few riled up muslims? >> it was brezinski's, the moment in history he is the proudest of. is in fact afghanistan. in creating a vietnam for the soviet union in afghanistan by arming the measure dean and bin laden. amy: so the soviets would have their own quagmire. >> which they did, and that started in 1978. amy: julian assange, can you talk about icwatch and what it is? >> icwatch is a database of more than 27,000 profiles of people associated with u.s. intelligence community or industries so that includes people who work for the government and private industry. it was created by a little journalism startup called transparency talk it, so they launched this a couple of weeks ago. this information was all originally in the public domain or seemingly in the public domain from linkedin. these are cds of people involved in various intelligence activities. by searching linkedin for keywords that he used the national security agency documents or names of special task forces or the effects list assassination and afghanistan these were linked together, for example claims they had worked at the national security agency at some stage or on the various code word projects for the national security agencies. as a result of doing that, they faced counterattack in the counterattack was some crisis -- amy: this was for intelligence committee watch, for indexing what already is in the public -- >> for an example, one of the death threats from the counterintelligence operative who is also former marine saying he would hunt them down and kill them no matter where they were in the world, no place in the world they could hide. amy: specifically, what is quoted in your press release, i promise you i will kill everyone involved in your website. there is nowhere on this earth that you will be able to hide from me. >> yes. there was a number of other such threats. amy: how do you know who this is? >> we have the e-mail it was sent from. now, i think it perfectly explains why the u.s. intelligence community must itself be scrutinized. what do we have in that statement? murderess criminal, arrogance and there is no in the world you can hide, and vengeful. i should add one further point and deeply incompetent. two, a, send the message at all, but, be, this is a counterintelligence person. this is a person whose job it is to not allow secret information out. that is their job. but they let that -- they themselves put that information on linkedin. they themselves are your jaded about their own incompetence to the degree where they are threatening to kill people involved with the journalism project. amy: this is an intelligence analyst in the washington, d.c. area who put this information, his own linkedin, and have you headed this e-mail over to the federal authorities in the united states to investigate the death threats? >> they have handed the information over to take the next up. there's a question about who side of the matter the federal authorities might be on and they use the investigation as in fact away to investigate the criminal death threat or with a actually use it as an excuse to investigate icwatch? amy: you have something like 140,000 entries here. what are you doing with this and how are people using this? >> as a result of the death threats, icwatch came to us and said, can you make sure information will be protected? there also tracking -- tracked electronically. if you put icwatch into the wikileaks system to merge with all the other 8.3 billion records, so now is really quite powerful and it is providing information on a lot of very serious programs that we did not know anything about. it is also a great way for journalists to get people talking because these are individuals named individuals saying this year they worked in this particular program. so as a -- it is a great resource. i give you an example. jpel [captioning made possible by democracy now!] . if you go to wikileaks -- sorry, go to icwatch. wikileaks.org and search for jpel or priority effects list, and that is a name that is used for the u.s. assassination program in afghanistan. we first revealed in 2010 that name was being used in a task force associated with it that has continued on an expanded in various ways, it has also brought in some nato partners, the joint aspect, that in the icwatch information, individuals saying they nominated 600 people to the jpel as a result of 37 of them are killed or captured. others saying they were directly involved in the nomination for the purpose of kinetic targeting. u.s. is kind of made a bit of a desperate pentagon is made a bit of a legal ruse in terms how it describes these assassination list. there was sadism kill/capture list. -- they always say it is a kill/capture list. they say they resist and are killed. in fact, in practice it is kamal they just drone them. there's no attempt to capture. here we have evidence come a concessions even because it is the individual concern was written the information saying, no, the purpose was always kinetic targeting. there have been hundreds of nominations. there is around 50 entries talking about, you know, bragging on this about how they are involved in these programs to assassinate people. similarly, with interrogations people bragging about how they oversaw 3000 different interrogations including high-value detainees and targets, new national security agency programs that have not previously been aware of, even some documents because they give a list of code words which they worked on. we know these ones which is how we found the entry. but these programs we don't know about. cv's are great. you read a dv, and it is all in context. yet the key dates and the range of their work. some information about particular keyword but in context of the rest of the work they did and how the process integrates, what agencies they dealt with. so they brag about with the cia and dia. amy: and they talk about drone programs, being involved. >> thousands of references some 8000 references to people involving uav's which is a manned aerial -- unmanned aerial vehicle, used to describe drones. more than 8000 people involved in various as x from manufacturing, targeting intelligence feedback. amy: spying? >> and spying. visual spying, spying on radio frequencies. amy: so perhaps if you have job openings, you might be concerned that someone actually who is applying for a job might actually be a spy. >> i think there's a real question --for some people, they were involved in assassinate people, interrogating people, and they have moved on. so they have moved into police moved into career divisor at universities. you could be faced with the police interrogator who torture people in guantánamo. there is a row question about what the effect is on your society. you have all of these people have become used to torturing killing people, coming back and integrating back into society. as far as i'm aware, no program to help them reintegrate and help them normalize as they come back in. there's a lot of debate about whether guantánamo detainees could be brought to new york to be trialed. are they too dangerous after the way they had been treated yet the war the rotation at -- treated? or are they too irritated? the blacks had interrogators are people involved in assassination programs, are they too dangerous to be brought back into and enter into the police force or injure into the university administration's or enter into the doj? amy: julie massage talking about icwatch, intelligence community watch, speaking inside the ecuadorian embassy in london he is taken political refuge for the past three years. coming up, he will talk about the inside story about why the u.s. forced down the planes of libyan plane evo morales in 2013 to hide for nsa contractor edward snowden. stay with us. ♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we return to our exclusive interview with wikileaks founder julian assange. i spoke to him inside the ecuadorian embassy in london where he has taken refuge for nearly three years. in 2013, he played a pivotal role in helping national security agency whistleblower edward snowden leave hong kong for russia. during the u.s. hunt for snowden, bolivian president evo morales'plan was forced to land in austria for 14 hours after spain, france, portugal and italy closed their airspace under pressure from the united states over false rumors snowden was on board. i asked wikileaks founder julian assange to talk about what he knew about the incident. >> let's go back to 2013. there was a worldwide manhunt for edward snowden. at a particular moment in time, the largest manhunt the world has ever seen. more resources put into it over that two week period than any other manhunt. the manhunt for osama bin laden over and expanded period was larger, but over that short period of because of the abilities now the national security agency and incredible paranoia by the u.s. general intelligence committed to, which is about 100,000 strong, vast resources were put into trying to grab edward snowden or workout where he might go, or he was going, and grab him there. so we were against that and got him out of hong kong and got him to russia and we're going to transit through russia to get him to latin america. now the u.s. government canceled his passport as he was on route, it seems, to moscow. meaning, he then could not take his next flight. at that point, it became a question of, well, how else can he proceed? if he can't proceed by commercial airline, are there other alternatives? so we looked into private flights, private jets, other unusual routes for commercial jets, and presidential jets. now, we managed to get some intelligence on the u.s. government's thinking of the different types of jets and they were concerned the presidential jets might be difficult for them from a legal perspective post up from a legal perspective, they are flying embassies. there protected under the vienna convention. it has a right to go into the presidential jet. so in assessing these options president madurio for example had a ready-made an offer of asylum. i'm not sure if it was public by the stage, but it became public. so we thought that and if you are presidential jets were a possibility. but we particularly were concentrating on -- i don't want to mention all the nations involved but latin american nations who were not bolivia there was an oil conference -- there was an international oil conference in moscow that week. edward snowden was still in the airport. so we thought, well, this is an opportunity, actually, to send edward snowden to latin america on one of these jets. now i thought and was advised -- advised edward snowden he would be safest in russia. that the ability to protect the borders of russia significantly stronger than venezuela possibilities, for example, to protect its borders were ecuador's to protect its borders. but he was very worried about the optics. he did not want to be accused of being some kind of russian spy, so he really did not want to be in russia because he did not want that kind of propaganda attack to distract from the revelations. even though it would place him at risk. so it was the week of the oil conference in a number of presidential jets were flying back. we were considering one of these. so we then -- our code language that we used to overtly swapped presidential jet we were considering for the bolivian jet. so spoke about bolivia in order to distract from the actual candidate jet. some of our communications, we deliver lee spoke about -- deliberately spoke about that on open lines to lawyers in the united states. and we did not think much more but we had engaged in a number of these destruction operations in the essilor mover -- asylum a new for from hong kong, booking them on flights to india through beijing, for example, and other forms of distraction like iceland, for example. we did not think this was anything more than just distracting, but the u.s. picked up a statement -- supportive statement made in moscow by president evo morales and appears to have picked up our code word for the actual operation, and put two and two together and made 22, and then pressured france, successfully france portugal, to close their airspace to president evo morales's jet. it was forced to land in vienna. and then once in vienna, there's pressure to search the plane. it is quite extraordinary situation that results true nature, relationship between western europe and the united states and what it claims arts i use of human rights -- claims are its values of human rights and respecting the rule of law just a phone call from u.s. intelligence was enough to close the airspace to a booked presidential flight, which has immunity. and they got it wrong. they spent all that political capital in demanding that the urgent favor to close the airspace, which was humiliating to those western european countries, and they got it wrong. amy: have you spoken to president morale us about what happened? >> i've spoken to his ambassador and his aide of what happened. the ambassador to the united kingdom was involved in portugal, so he was actually at that time in 2013 he was involved in the whole incident. amy: because portugal closed its airspace. >> portugal, spain, and france closed airspace. some other things happen come some preemptive requests were sent out to iceland, which we got hold of. the u.s. was pressuring countries where flights might go through or land or refuel and as a result of that, it became clear that in fact it was too dangerous at that moment, at least, to take any flight out of moscow. and this is what then led to his eventual asylum. it wasn't just the removal of the passport, which removed his ability to use commercial flights, it was the u.s. was closing airspace and acting in a manner where you would have to assume that, you know, if flights went past the united states, there might be some kind of -- amy: this is an odd situation. the u.s. is lying on your conversations. they pick up information from your confirmations with lawyers -- conversations with lawyers and force a presidents plane down on the ground. >> the u.s. should apologize to evo morales, to portugal, despain, to france. portugal, spain, and france should apologize to evo morales for not following the law. we can't predict when other countries won't follow the law. we can't predict that other countries will engage in some criminal operation unprecedented criminal operation. but in some ways, while it was unfortunate for president morales, it was also a very good thing to have seen because it revealed the arrogance of western europe toward latin america. it revealed the arrogance and hypocrisy of the united states and pressuring -- it revealed the nature of the relationship with the united states. and this became the key ingredient in edward snowden's asylum application. you could debate about, well will he receive a fair process in the united states? there is a system of all their and will he receive a fair process? but after that happened, at a legal level in terms of asylum it was very clear that there could not be a fair process, and was clear that he could not receive asylum in western europe , that it was meaningless. and at a political level, the russian government had to react and it did not have -- it could not react by handing him over, it would look weak and unprincipled. it only had one other cardica play, which was to accept his asylum. amy: were you surprised -- shocked when u.s. forced on the plane of evo morales? >> yes and no. i would not expect they would do that, but we had seen from what -- snowden was sharp shocked. we at seen similar -- we had seen similar illegal operations. we had seen this type of illegality before. amy: on that point quickly on iceland, the fbi flew into iceland without asking the government's permission? >> the u.s. flu a private jet with six fbi officers and to do prosecutors, one from new york and the other we believe from alexandria virginia, where the wikileaks grand jury is taking place, and iceland under false pretenses, pretending they were investigating hacking threat to the icelandic government. once there, they then started interrogating an informant. notice informant had approached the u.s. embassy with information. it is interesting to speculate exactly why the approach was made, whether it was because they threaten prosecution or desire for financial rewards but then started interrogating them, taking them around hotel rooms in iceland. the interior ministry of iceland found out about what was going on and ordered the fbi leave. they said they would and they didn't. and then a second order was put in. and then they fled iceland under the fear of arrest. at that point, got the informant to fly to washington, d.c. were they interrogated them for another five days. and then tried to use them to infiltrate part of wikileaks and they been met in denmark on two locations and money was handed over in exchange for information , $5,000. subsequently, that informant has confessed doing that, has been prosecuted in iceland for fraud embezzlement, and other crimes and pursued by us and some other icelandic it and sees as well. this person was involved in bezel meant. importantly, this is the fbi's star witness in the case against wikileaks. so their star witness has gone from just being witness to being someone who is now in prison who has confessed to fabricating letters for me -- from me as part of a fraudulent operation been convicted of other crimes and has additional crimes. amy: and he has currently in prison in iceland? >> yes. amy: and this is the star witness against you in the espionage case? how do you know he is the star witness? >> it seems from other records were the u.s. government speaks about that operation and how valuable it was to them that, you know, extreme value to them. amy: as we wrap up, i want to end where we started, and that is you right here on the ecuadorian embassy. you have been here now for years. do you expect ever to leave? >> it is a geopolitical situation. it will depend on the geopolitics. there's a number of nations involved who have relationships with each other. has relationships with the united states. there are domestic things happening here in the united kingdom which are concerning on the one hand, u.k. says it will arrest me regardless, refuses to reveal whether the u.s. has a ready put in an extradition request. it says it will pull out of the european code of human rights within 100 days. i think it is going to find it harder than [indiscernible] it has engaged in this crazy adventurism in libya. it is introducing new legislation to say there is not enough anymore to follow the law -- that it is not enough anymore to follow the law. this is a credible rhetoric coming out of the premised are's mouth and the secretary responsible for the police. that it is not enough anymore to follow the law, not a matter of introducing new laws, but people who make statements which are perfectly lawful need to be stopped. otherwise, criticism against uk's foreign policy could lead people into the steppingstone to to mystic extremism. -- domestic extremism. once people are named as someone who is leading to domestic extremism, a gag can be put on them were everything they say has tapped the publication review by the government meetings and meeting places. you have to cement your agenda to what you're going to do at that meeting. this is not a matter of -- there are a laws that you can fight. speaking about matters which are not offenses and have no intention to make offenses, so, that is a very strange thing. that is, you know, -- there is not rhetoric that we expect to hear post-world war ii in northern europe. but we are hearing it now. amy: wikileaks founder julian assange speaking inside the ecuadorian embassy in london where he has taken refuge for the past three years. if he steps outside the embassy he will be arrested. to watch part one of our exclusive interview, visit democracynow.org where he talks about leaked drafts of the tpp the transpacific partnership, the recent disclosures of her british nuclear summary and whistleblower who says it is harder to get harder does it is harder to get through airport than on a nuclear submarine, and plans to use military force, in other words the influx of migrants from libya. that does it for our show. special thanks to dennis moynahan -- democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to [email protected] or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. 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