In what could bring a slight relief to the grievances of wath histleblower Julian Assange, a British court ruled that he can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S authorities guarantee he won’t get the death penalty. The latest development could give the Wikileaks founder a partial victory in his long battle over the site’s publication of classified American documents.
Two High Court judges, Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, have set forth a condition demanding additional assurances from the United States authorities. Unless these assurances are provided within three weeks regarding Julian Assange’s fate, the judges have indicated they would grant Assange a new appeal. This decision prolongs Assange’s legal saga, now spanning over a decade, and ensures his continued detention within London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has been held for the past five years.
The judges emphasized that the U.S. must guarantee Assange, an Australian national, the same protections under the First Amendment as a U.S. citizen and ensure that he will not face the death penalty. They stated that a hearing will convene on May 20 if the U.S. furnishes these submissions. Notably, the U.S. Justice Department refrained from commenting on the matter.
Supporters of Assange contend that he is a journalist shielded by the First Amendment, who uncovered U.S. military misconduct in Iraq and Afghanistan, serving the public interest. His wife, Stella Assange, denounced the ongoing persecution, asserting that Assange exposed the human toll of war and urging the Biden administration to drop the case.
During the two-day hearing in February, Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, argued that the U.S. sought to punish him for revealing extensive governmental wrongdoing through WikiLeaks. The judges dismissed six of Assange’s nine grounds of appeal, including claims of political persecution. However, they accepted three grounds for appeal, focusing on the threat to Assange’s freedom of speech, his non-U.S. citizenship, and the risk of the death penalty.
Despite U.S. assurances that Assange would not face capital punishment, the judges expressed concerns about the adequacy of these assurances. Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange’s legal representatives, voiced skepticism about their reliability.
Assange, a 52-year-old computer expert, faces charges related to WikiLeaks’ release of classified documents in 2010. U.S. prosecutors allege that he collaborated with Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, to leak sensitive information on military operations.
Assange’s legal entanglements began with his arrest in London in 2010, followed by seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations. Expelled from the embassy in 2019, he was arrested by British authorities. While Sweden dropped its investigations, the U.K. courts grappled with U.S. extradition requests, with a district judge initially rejecting them over concerns about Assange’s well-being. However, higher courts overturned this decision after assurances from the U.S., leading to the signing of an extradition order by the British government in 2022.
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