Interview With Julian Assange’s Father: John Shipton & Richard Medhurst

Richard Medhurst: How are you John, how are you holding it?

John Shipton: Hey, good to see you! Good to see you again.

Richard: I saw you the other day in the virtual courtroom.

John: Yes, I saw your name there too. It wasn’t too bad, you could hear most things.

Richard: Yes, it depended on who is talking. But yeah, you could hear most things. Did you manage to catch the whole thing?

John: Yes, I did. James Lewis… when he speaks he puts me to sleep! When Claire Dobbin speaks I just get angry. I stayed awake for the whole show. She’s got this real gift for making a snide comment in a highfalutin sentence with a touch of patronizing.

Richard: Exactly!

John: [jokingly] “You know, it’s just us making these decisions”. It really gets up my nose. I think it’s supposed to.

Richard: I think she said something like “Mr. Assange’s concern for his family went to the wayside when he decided to publish information.” I was like ‘did she actually say that?’ And yes, she did. Unbelievable.

John: You remember how in the original hearing back in February… No, September! She mentioned SAMs in Florida… what’s the name of that?

Richard: ADX Colorado.

John: Yeah, Florence Supermax in Colorado. She said “Abu Hamza’s been there, and things are so trivial there that he refused to go to court unless his toenails were cut.”

Richard: Yeah, I remember when she said that.

John: Abu Hamza’s got no arms!

Richard: Exactly. Just unbelievable. She makes me do double takes sometimes, ‘she actually said that?’
What did you make of this decision in the end in court?

John: You know, I just think that clearly the female judge was just yet another disgruntled magistrate. Holroyd came to a decision rather quickly so must have been prepared. It seems to me as the momentum has remade itself into the consideration of Julian’s character and the destruction of Stella’s aura as a noble wife. So instead of the mountain of misfeasance and malfeasance, procedural irregularities, conspiracies between the Crown Prosecution Service, CIA and the Swedish Prosecution Authority and all of the crimes that Wikileaks published, Chelsea Manning leaked. All of those crimes have disappeared and now we will spend two days in October examining Julian’s mental state and his character, and destroying his wife. I think it’s a pretty shoddy action. Also I feel sort of disappointed in Peirce, maybe mistakenly, that they always seem to lose and they always seem to be strategically intact and tactically on the back foot. So you know, they called the defense but there’s no need in my feeling to be always defensive. But I may be mistaken in that because I know nothing about the law. So I may be mistaken.

Richard: Well, I mean they don’t make it easy. I saw this as well, what you said. The whole conversation shifted away from the crimes by the CIA, by the Crown Prosecution – you name it, all these governments conspiring together and of course the publications by Wikileaks and now they’re only talking about Julian Assange and his mental health. Which you know, it’s a great win for them in a way because they’re not in the spotlight anymore.

John: No, they’re not. It’s just Julian and Julian, and Julian, and Stella, and then more Julian, and then poor professor Kopelman who’s a genuine human being. Thoughtful to the point of not wanting to endanger Stella or her children. Not wanting to endanger them has been turned against him to demonstrate that he’s partisan. It’s just… it’s just beyond the pale. It continues. Richard, you and I have been at this for 10 years.
What difference you might have noticed when you’re reading the list there? You saw my name. I read it constantly up until we got up to 36 people viewing… There was no Department of Foreign Affairs of Australia.

Richard: Are you disappointed with the level of support from them?

John: Yes, very. They constantly for 10 or 11 years have found a mantra. You know, they went to Rishikesh and they found a mantra to utter over and over again that “we have offered consular service”. When that mantra hypnotizes them, they go to the next mantra, which they do constantly. “We don’t interfere in the judicial processes of another country.” [laughs]

Richard: He’s an Australian citizen. It’s like they have nothing to do with it or something. It’s crazy.

John: Nils is very good on this, he’s very good talker. But the conspiracy between the Crown Prosecution Service and the Swedish Prosecution Authority is documented. I’ve sent those documents to the Department of Foreign Affairs but you know… It was Nietzsche who said “there’s no monster colder than the state”.

Richard: What about the Labour Party? Recently they said they declare their support for Julian Assange.
Does that make a difference?

John: Yes, that makes a heap of difference. The thing is, as you know, in these societies the sovereign majesty of parliament is paramount, yet every institution of state is envious of those powers. The institution of parliament has a lot of power. The individuals within parliament are mostly vulnerable, but as a unity… What has happened in Australia is that we now have 28 members of the ‘Assange Group’ out of a parliament of 227, okay? They cross-party. The Prime Minister is in the group. So this is the first time we see a demonstration of the parliamentarians listening to their constituents, taking the concerns of their constituents into parliament. Parliament in a sovereign majesty instructing the executives to act on the concerns of the constituents and the parliament. it’s a sort of an old-fashioned phenomena that Julian has brought about. He gets support right across the political spectrum. I think it will demonstrate to people in future that the parliament can act if the concerns cross the political divides. This returns power to parliament which the institutions of state and corporations are envious of.

Richard: What would you like to see from the Australian government?
What kind of concrete support would you like to see from them?

John: Well, you know, I’d like to see the institutions of state understand the circumstances that they’ve involved themselves in and the lowering of stature of Australia as a sovereign nation that no defense of Assange has brought about. Without stature negotiations in a multi-polar world which is here now, not tomorrow, it’s here now. Negotiations in a multi-polar world depend upon your stature and your stature depends upon the unity of the polity. The unity of the polity only comes about if there’s no difference or very little difference between the government’s outlook and the people’s outlook. The realization of that will cause the institutions of state to change their advice to the executive and the executive will go about thinking of a way to return Julian to his family and his home.
Very simple things, very simple political concepts which have been abandoned over the last 30 years. What has happened over the last 30 years is that ministers and corporations gather together in places like Doha, discuss matters and leave behind the concerns of their constituents. As a consequence the belief in government has declined considerably. As you can see in Germany tens of thousands of people march against the regulations. So there’s no faith in government. In France 3 weeks ago 6.5 million in 29 cities marched against what they call the…

Richard:  ‘Pass Sanitaire’.

John: Yes, the ‘Sanitary Pass’. So you see, what has evolved is that the governments exist on their own – without their populations. Well, this will have to change. You know, the 650 000 Australians have signed the petition to bring Julian home. The largest petition ever served! Extraordinary.
You and I can run through this very quickly and it’s good fun.
There’s a support for Julian in the European Parliament. There’s a cross-party group in the Bundestag. There’s a support for Julian in the Austrian Parliament. In the Norwegian Parliament. In the Swedish Parliament. In the French Parliament. In the Spanish Parliament. In the Mexican Parliament. In the Chilean Parliament. And I can go on. The support for Julian across the Middle East among the people is vast! I go to Lebanon and I don’t pay for a meal! You know, the Lebanese are very generous. It’s the same in the Gulf States. Of course the administrations of the Gulf States are always anxious, always insecure but people always support Julian. Oman – it’s both the government and the people support Julian. But the rest of the Gulf is a little bit too insecure to make public statements.

Richard: It was good seeing Jeremy Corbyn outside the court, not many UK politicians do that.

John: Yes! [laughs] So perfectly dressed to fit in. Didn’t take a higher position, just perfect. I’m very fond of that man. Do you know his brother?

Richard: No, not personally anyway.

John: Do you know of his brother? Look him up, Piers Corbyn. Very interesting human being. He’s an astrophysicist.

Richard:  Wow, I didn’t know that. That’s fascinating. I will, I will absolutely look him up.
You know John, speaking of all this wide support that Julian gets. What’s bizarre to me is that in the court they’re questioning Kopelman’s expertise, but we had so many doctors… I mean, I can’t even remember all their names. There was so many doctors who came and testified on his behalf. Does this basically mean that in October they’re going to question everything they said?

John: The foundation for the judge Baraitser’s judgment was Kopelman. Kopelman and Deeley. So they’ll try to destroy Kopelman. I don’t think they’re so concerned with Deeley, he is a an expert on Asperger’s. So I don’t think they’re so concerned with that, but Kopelman… they will do everything they can to destroy him.

Richard: We saw this in September, right? This character assassination. They did it with almost every witness.

John: Yeah. And then the judge didn’t once pull them up. Not even once, no one. James Lewis… the excuse was that, you know, ‘we have to test the witness’. Do you remember how Deeley dealt with James Lewis? He never looked at him because we’re up the top and you’re down in the press. You’re in the annex, we’re up the top. We look down, the witness box is here. [hands gestures] So we see what James Lewis does. What he does is he asks us a question and then throws the question, you know, turns and stares like that: [imitates expression, laughs] “Dr. Deeley?” [both laugh] And so in the end of James’s questioning of Dr. Deeley, James almost wept. He said “why don’t you look at me, why aren’t you looking at me?”  Like a little kid.

Richard: Yeah, you always did this pose like ‘look at me!’ [laughs] That was really funny.

John: Very funny. It’s like, you know, a comedian. Yes, maybe it’s effective. He’s got a good career, I don’t know. He got 30 000 pounds for that.

Richard: Oh really? And the British taxpayer has to pay for the High Court proceedings, right?

John: Well, they seem to be happy with that. You know, nobody’s complaining.

Richard: When was the last time that you spoke to Julian?
Have you visited him lately or spoken on the phone?

John: I haven’t been able to visit since March last year. But we speak regularly on the telephone. It costs a fortune because it’s a calls to Australia or wherever. We did the tour of the US which was beautifully structured and very successful. I think we started off in Miami, in the Bitcoin conference and then we finished up in Washington at the Washington Press Club. In the same room, the first amendment room, that Julian had released the Collateral Murder in 2010. So yeah, it was well attended. Ryan Grimm and Max Blumenthal became very invigorated and firm. Tucker Carlson was helpful, Penny Goodman was as well. So you know, it’s cut the umbrella of the first amendment and embraced all.

Richard: This tour that you did in the United States, do you have any other plans to do something similar? Maybe in Europe?

John: Yes, in the UK. Hearing in October will decide if there is going to be an appeal. Two day hearing… I think the defense won four days, don’t they? So if they say ‘yes, there will be an appeal’, they’ll give a date for that appeal. That will set the date for when we go to the UK and do a tour through the UK. Nils’s book is coming out. You read German, don’t you?

Richard: Yes, I’ve actually been reading his book because it’s out in German. It’s not out in English yet. It comes out in February, right? So I’ve been reading the one in German and I was going to do a video on it soon.

John: Oh, cool! He’s good company if you feel like zipping up to Basil. I think he lives just outside Basil. Yeah, he’s good company. He speaks more languages than you! [laughs] Yeah, he’s great. You can compete with him for ‘learn another language’.

Richard: Yeah, that would be funny. That would be really funny.

John: You have Arabic, don’t you?

Richard: Yeah. I went to French high school so I learned French that way. German here, and then English from my father, and Arabic from my mom.

John: So four languages. I don’t know if Nils is close to that. Nils has German, Swedish, English, Serbian. His wife is Serbian. He does have French but I don’t think he’s truly fluent.

Richard: So what we’re tied for four.

John: Yeah [laughs], you can say that you speak Arabic which is more complex. It’s got a bigger, richer grammar than any of the other languages, European languages.

Richard: It’s quite tough. You know, actually I was thinking of using this to my advantage. I already filmed a video on Assange, like a recap of his case in English. I re-filmed it in German and I’m gonna put it out next week. I’m gonna do it also in Arabic and French to kind of you know, educate as many people as possible. I thought ‘why not’? You know, the media are either not reporting or they’re spreading lies so we have to counter it as much as we can.

John: It’s a popular subject matter in the Middle East. Yeah, you can’t go wrong.

Richard: John, I wanted to ask you – do you have any updates regarding this U.C. Global case in Spain? Because, you know, they brought it up the other day and they said “Baraitser didn’t conclude on it because it wasn’t done”. I was thinking – how far along is it? Maybe they reached a conclusion or something?

John: No, the hearing was adjourned for a short while. But I saw Fitzgerald tried to get it in with the Lord Holroyd. He took no notice whatsoever.

Richard: It’s scandalous honestly, like as if it’s something on the sidelines. You know, like nothing big. Unbelievable.

John: [laughing]: ‘It’s nothing, now turn the page.’

Richard: Don’t you think it’s incredible? They’re trying to discard Kopelman’s evidence because of a technicality. But this Thordarson admitted that he lied in his witness testimony against Assange. And there’s again no notice of it whatsoever. It doesn’t even come up in the court, right?

John: Of the five elements of the American appeal none of them had room. You know, the only thing there’s room for, and we already discussed the only thing there’s room for, is the destruction of Julian’s character and the reduction of the stature of Stella Morris. And the ruin of professor Kopelman. Well, number one in the list is a failure of law by the judge. In the appeal court, as I understand, the appeal court can only consider matters of law. And that’s number one in that list of five. What the other four are doing there? They’re all merit, they’re meretricious. So the appeal court doesn’t handle that. However, the strategy and tactics of the prosecution have been able to bring before the court matters which will lower Julian’s stature. So I get a bit crossed with Peirce. I feel they’ve been a bit outwitted here. However, we’ll see.

Richard: What did you make of these assurances that were in these five grounds of appeal? You know, SAMs and Australia prison centers, what is that?

John: Well, I don’t know. I guess there’s no kids watching your show… It’s bullshit! [both laugh] This poor bugger took his case to the ECHR [European Court of Human Rights] and the Americans gave all sorts of assurances that he wouldn’t be put in a ‘supermax’ and he could stay, you know, in the ‘Gulf High House’ or whatever in Florida. But as soon as he got to the United States they put him in the services. 426 treaties with the indigenous people of the United States. Every single one of them but that broke. That’s how they make their money – they suck people into an agreement and then say ‘oh bugger off’.

Richard: That’s really it. I even spoke to Gary McKinnon, he’s the first one they tried applying this extradition treaty template on. He also fought this for like 10 years. They offered him assurances and they didn’t even bother putting them in writing at that time like he’s just so insulting. He took one look at the things they offered to Julian and he was also like “yeah, they’re worthless”. I mean anyone can see that, really. Anyone.

John: Gary fought a good case and had a lot of powerful people. I think Boris Johnson was active in supporting Gary. He had, you know, strong people there. His mum is very helpful to us, lovely woman.

Richard: They’ve reneged on it virtually, everything. They can’t be trusted unfortunately.

John: No, not even the slightest. I don’t think it matters to them. What matters is the persecution of Julian and the suffering of his family, and the bankruptcy of his family, and mother, and father, and brother, and Julian, and Wikileaks… that’s their aim. Their aim is achieved. So everybody thinks the aim is to get him into the ‘supermax’. Well, it doesn’t matter, you know. Use up his resources, have another case, another two days hearing. Baraitser and John Rees, and myself, and thousand others.

Richard: Yeah, it’s like Stella said: “the whole process is the punishment”.

John: Yeah, it’s not so much ‘punishment’. You know, Gabriel uses that phrase too, but it sort of understates it a little. The punishment is still at the end. This process is sadistic. You’ve got to describe them for their human quality, you know. It’s the sadism. I know these people and have meetings with them. They sit down and they write another paper, they issue another edit for Julian’s suffering. Then they go home and open a bottle of red wine, maybe have two glasses and some roast chicken. Then maybe they go out to opera, or maybe take the kids to the movies or whatever. And then come in the next day and make sure that it’s bulletproof, that it can’t be rescinded in any way. Go home, have another glass [jokingly] “oh well, I’m having white tonight actually and a bunch of Chardonnay”. Another characteristic I noticed in these people in the Crown Prosecution Service, the Swedish Prosecution Authority and the Department of Justice is that they’re thinking that they’re smarter than an intelligent man. They see themselves in competition with Julian because everybody says Julian’s intelligent and clever and done this wonderful thing. There’s an element of competition and sadism.

Richard: It’s really sadistic to say the least.

John: A manifestation of state employee envy.

Richard: Yeah, I did get this vibe that they have some kind of inferiority conflicts, especially with that pose right after every question. [both laugh]

John: Did you manage to see that, did you? In the end? [laughs]

Richard: In some instances yes.

John: It was very funny. He has this technique of making his moustache bristle, what the… [both laugh]

Richard: Oh God, they’re really comical in some way. They’re real characters, you know.

John: Yeah. Well, Fitzgerald when he’s insulted by the judge Baraitser or cut off halfway through he goes “I’m obliged man, I’m obliged man”.

Richard: I don’t think I could ever become a lawyer, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. It’s too much.

John: Mark Summers couldn’t. You know, when he reviewed the evidence of Thordarson and stated that it was a charge based on an event in Iceland… against an Australian… brought in the UK by the United States. How can this be acceptable in this court? He got so angry he was out in the street, you know, calming down when she accepted that evidence and the charge. It’s ridiculous!

Richard: Yeah, I don’t blame him honestly.

John: It wasn’t even Iceland bringing the charge. The United States bringing a charge for an offense supposedly committed in Iceland, but brought in the United Kingdom! This is…

Richard: Yeah, exactly. It’s absurd.

John: And they allow it! The judge allows the thing.

Richard: Yes, every development is just jaw dropping, you know. Not a day goes by and there’s something new happening in the courts or with the outsiders.
I also saw, I think, two weeks ago something regarding Julian’s citizenship from Ecuador. Is it that they withdrew it? Is that what happened?

John: Yes, they withdrew it. That’s a scandal in itself.
What’s his name… Peter Duncan. Duncan-something. He wrote his autobiography and devoted a chapter to what he called ‘Operation Pelican’ which was the removal of Julian from the Embassy. He revealed the dates and all of that, you’d love this. Then he goes over to after suborning the president of Ecuador to contravene the conventions of asylum. He goes to the gift shop in Buckingham Palace and buys a nice plate. From the gift shop.

Richard: What?

John: This is quote-unquote “I bought a nice plate from the Buckingham Palace gift shop. I took it with me to Quito, to give it to the president Moreno for his help in removing (…)”.

Richard: What does that even mean? I’m speechless, I’m honestly speechless.

John: President Moreno getting a plate from the gift shop… it’s an insult. [laughs]

Richard: It is. He got an IMF loan at least, that was worth something. That’s worth more than a plate. [both laugh]

John: You know, Moreno brought his nation into disgrace. Duncan, sir Alan Duncan brought the conventions of asylum established in 1958. Australia being one of the authors, ratified in 1973 at the United Nations General Assembly. This man’s proud, he writes a whole chapter in his autobiography of how he did it.

Richard:  Right. Honestly, it’s unreal. I mean you really have people like that running governments. It’s frightening. It’s like those people write books on how they manufactured and orchestrated sanctions on other countries and starved people. And they’re proud of it. It’s like… why would you write that? Why would you do that?

John: Somehow if you rather wrote it down, you’re extirpated and forgiven. Not around in shame for the rest of your life, no.

Richard: Yeah, and then they have the nerve to call other people criminals. They have the nerve to accuse Julian and other whistleblowers.

John: Yeah. Julian, who is second most surveilled man in the world other than a president, hadn’t been out of his room for seven years. A year and a half in Norwich and then two years in… They say he’s bad. It’s incredible! Every single utterance that he’s made in nine years, everything, every single thing that he’s done or made in nine years, they know back to front.

Richard: It’s kind of a rhetorical question. Do you think a lot of this is the fault of the media? If they had done their job and slapped up these governments from the beginning, we wouldn’t be in this position. Do you think that if they, you know, held these powers to account for all this corruption, the spying, the foul play, the wrongdoing government, never mind the war crimes which were exposed.

John: I don’t know. Privately I have my opinion of them and their arms of government policy. They’re split up into sections of the polity. Those sections of the polity absorb policy under different tones. So in the Daily telegraph it has a particular tone, but they’re all government policy. The counter argument is that the press is the fourth estate and it criticizes government, and holds it in order, blah blah blah. But I’ve never seen that happen in my life. I said that to John Pilger. He went upstairs and brought down a copy of the Daily Mirror where he was on the front page. The first six pages covered the destruction of Vietnam and the murder of its population. So I guess things have changed a lot.

Richard: Oh they absolutely have. I was just reading about the Killing Fields yesterday. Movie about the New York Times where they were covering Cambodia. These papers used to have some kind of backbone like 50 years ago. It’s really a shame.
Despite everything that’s happened, how do you see Julian’s journey from when he started Wikileaks to everything that’s happened now?

John: Well, this is a particularly wonderful thing where a person had the insight and intelligence, and understanding of the engineering marvel that the Internet is. To be able to invent a wiki wherein people could involve themselves to the levels of skills and depths of knowledge equal to anybody in the State Department and inform themselves of the government policy. Make discussion amongst themselves, their friends, their families, their groups, associates and work workplace people. This was a particularly tremendous gift of, I don’t want to say ‘power’ but let me see what would be a good phrase… ‘Substantial empowerment’ of the population. I think that will be indelible historically. Yeah that’s what I think. You could say ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ if you want, but that measure, the barometer of that insight and structure that Wikileaks and Julian put together with everybody who has access to a computer as part of the forum of debate and knowledge. The barometer and power of that insight is the persecution.

Richard: Yeah.

John: I know those ideas are a little complex to get across, but I think it’s very clear that the quality, the empowerment and the substance given to ordinary people by the ideas that Julian and Wikileaks put together, the barometer of its success and power is the persecution of Julian Assange, his associates and Wikileaks.

Richard: Yes, I completely understand. If what he has done didn’t carry any weight, if Wikileaks wasn’t an important publisher they wouldn’t be going to these links.
John, is there anything you want to tell the readers, anything at all?

John: I just want you to know, without you guys ‘in strata’ alternate media, that’s only who I speak to, Occasionally I might speak to Tucker Carlson. But Tucker is ‘almost alternative’, you know. He’s almost alternative and Penny Goodman’s almost alternative as well. So without that strata of thought and inquiry we’d be nothing. So thanks to you and without the support of supporters we’d be shouting into the wind like a mad person standing on the corner saying ‘the world is ending’! Without the supporters and without you guys the situation would be worse. So thank you. I mean the situation would be worse than hopeless. Julian would be already, you know, locked up. They don’t bother with laws, these people. Unless we are watching intently.

Richard: Thank you, we all appreciate what Julian does and his resilience. My parents, they’re in the UN so they told me a lot about how shady everything is in world politics. But you know, seeing for example Collateral Murder was a very transformative thing ,even for me. It’s very important.

John, I often post the crowdfunding thing for Julian.
Is there anything else people can do to help his legal case? What can the readers do?

John: Well, first of all they can write to Julian, he always likes to get letters. The website is writejulian.com All the instructions are there, how to do it.
The other thing is to continue the interest and really speaking amongst each other, amongst ourselves. I’ll give you a profound example. Around 11 years ago Collateral murder, Iraq War Files, Afghanistan War Logs and Guantanamo Bay Detainee Files came out. It takes a long while to turn around an empire with as many interests as the United States. But those revelations have percolated through and precipitated into the culture of the Western People and the people of the United States. There’s an expression that ordinary people have in the United States – ‘Never ending wars’. That’s not a rainmaker, that comes up from us.
So to cut the story short they’re out of Afghanistan, that’s ending and peace can begin there in a year or so. They’re out of Iraq and peace is slowly emerging there as that country puts itself back together. They’re out of Syria as that country puts itself back together. They’re on the cusp of closing Guantanamo Bay, that excrement on the administration of justice in the West. That is the result of the publications by Wikileaks and those files. They’re percolating into the culture, and culture in system by way of removing support. As a mass we don’t have a voice but we have a lot of power in removing support. That support has been removed and the wars are ending. The support has been removed and a multicultural arrangement between these states and the nations of the world surrounding the laws in the United Nations is emerging every day. That is a result of the historical movement of absorption of those understandings provided in the leaks that Chelsea Manning gave and Julian published in a format which allows constant access.
I left out one thing, it’s pretty important. The cables. So it’s the Iraq War Files, the cables. The Afghanistan War Logs and the Guantanamo Bay Files. It’s really important to understand that you guys and Julian speaking of these things brought a historical change. The only thing we can do is to as a mass remove support for those adventures, which we have done and the wars are ending.

Richard: I don’t think anyone can doubt the importance of these revelations and how they’ve transformed how we view US empire, their allies and the wars, absolutely.
Just as the last question John, what do you hope to see in the High Court?

John: You know, the Arabs say ‘tomorrow will be worse than today and the day after tomorrow will be worse than tomorrow’. In other words, don’t place your energies in hope, place your energies in faith. So I don’t hope for anything, I just have faith in myself, Julian and you guys. We will prevail because the stain of injustice would be so great that we would not any longer be able to act as a unified western world. The stain will be just beyond our capacity to be. So I have faith that Julian will come home to his family. When? I don’t know, but I have faith that it will happen.

Richard: Yes, me too, God willing. We’re always standing behind him.

John: Insha’Allah, Insha’Allah.

Richard: Insha’Allah, exactly. John, thank you so much for your time. It’s great chatting with you and having you on. I hope to see you soon.

John: Yeah, it’s lovely to see your youthful, bright face. So yeah, see you at the barricades.

Richard: Yes, always!

John: Shukran, and… how do you say goodbye?

Richard: Ma’a salama.

John: Yes, Ma’a salama Richard.

Richard:  Ma’a salama John.

John: Bye.