"Willing to hand death lists to psychopaths" is the language of a hit piece so your link seems a little biased.
The article states that there were multiple journalists who could be called as witnesses, and could testify as to what happened, one way or the other.
I'm not saying it's false, I don't know, but the reporting on this has been hotly contested and there are charges of politicization all around.
(I don't buy the argument that it was actually that, but I'm willing to believe that he convinced himself that it was).
Agreed, it will be very interesting to see how this particular thing goes forward from today. Ideally, he would defend himself. I wouldn't hate to be proven wrong, as heroes are few and far between.
However, post-release, becoming a main character in a certain political branch of the podcast-sphere might allow him to ignore any of these annoying factual issues and do just fine.
/cynical