LONDON — A British court on Monday allowed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to launch a full appeal against his extradition to the United States on espionage charges, after more than a decade of legal battles.
Two judges at London’s High Court said Australian-born Assange could appeal to hear his argument that he may be discriminated against because he is a foreign national.
Assange’s legal avenues in the UK would have been exhausted if the High Court had ruled that extradition could go ahead. His legal team said last week that Assange could have been put on a plane to the United States within 24 hours if they had ruled against him.
Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, had told the justices they should not accept assurances from US prosecutors that his client could seek First Amendment protections because a US court would not be bound by this. “We say this is clearly insufficient assurance,” he told the court, Reuters reported.
However, Reuters said it had accepted a separate assurance that Assange would not face the death penalty, saying the United States had provided an “unambiguous promise not to charge any offense punishable by the death penalty.” capital city “.
It could be months before the appeal is heard.
Assange, 52, was not present in court to hear the debate over his fate. Fitzgerald said he was not in attendance for health reasons.
But hundreds of demonstrators applauded outside the court when the verdict was announced.
After the hearing, Assange’s wife Stella, whom he married behind bars in 2022, told a news conference that her husband was “obviously relieved” by the judgment.
“I think the American administration should take advantage of this moment to drop the case and put an end to it, to distance itself from these terrible prosecutions that this administration did not initiate and which it should have already put an end to.” , she said.
Assange has been fighting extradition for more than a decade, including seven years in exile at the Ecuadorian embassy in London before being incarcerated in the high security Belmarsh prison on the outskirts of London, where he has been detained for five years.
Assange was indicted in the United States on 17 counts of espionage and one count of computer misuse following the publication of classified documents by WikiLeaks.
U.S. prosecutors say he put lives at risk by helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files released by WikiLeaks nearly 15 years ago.
James Lewis, a United States attorney, argued in written documents that Assange’s actions “threatened to harm the strategic and national security interests of the United States” and placed the individuals named in the documents – y including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped US forces – at the risk of “serious physical harm”.
Assange’s lawyers argued that he engaged in a regular journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information and that the prosecution constituted politically motivated retaliation.
They said he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, although U.S. authorities said the sentence would likely be much shorter than that.
Many of Assange’s supporters around the world have criticized the prosecution and there have been calls for the case to be dropped from rights groups, some media outlets and political leaders, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
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Wikileaks, which he launched in 2006 to allow leakers to file classified documents, rose to prominence four years later when it released a classified video provided by Manning.
Recorded in 2007, the video showed a US military helicopter killing civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad. When a van arrived to collect the injured, it was also fired upon. More than 10 people were killed.
Manning was convicted by court martial of espionage and other charges in 2013 for leaking secret military files to WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison but was released in 2017 after President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him over allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women.
Two years later, he jumped bail and took refuge inside the Ecuadorian embassy, which put him out of reach of authorities but effectively trapped him in the building.
After the relationship deteriorated, he was kicked out of the embassy in April 2019 and British police immediately arrested him for breaching bail in 2012. He has been in prison ever since, although Sweden dropped investigations for sex crimes in 2019 due to the passage of time.
Although a British district court judge ruled against the extradition request in 2021, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, US authorities won an appeal the following year, after giving a series of assurances on how Assange would be treated if extradited. This included an undertaking that he could be transferred to Australia to serve his sentence.
Earlier this year, Australia’s parliament called for Assange to be allowed to return to his homeland. Officials have tried to pressure the United States to drop extradition efforts or find a diplomatic solution that would allow Assange to return to his home country.
Australian authorities said the case had dragged on for too long and tried to pressure the United States to drop extradition efforts or find a diplomatic solution that would allow his return.
Asked about Australia’s request last month, President Joe Biden and his administration were “considering it.”
News Source : www.nbcnews.com
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