British High Court rules in favor of U.S. extradition of Julian Assange

LONDON — A British High Court ruled Friday that WikiLeaks laminitis Julian Assange tin beryllium extradited to the United States to look charges of violating the Espionage Act.

The 50-year-old Australian volition stay successful London’s Belmarsh prison, wherever helium has been held since April 2019 aft the Ecuadoran Embassy revoked his governmental asylum.

Stella Moris, Assange’s partner, parent of his 2 children and his erstwhile lawyer, said they volition record a last entreaty to the British Supreme Court, which would perceive the lawsuit lone if it believes it involves a constituent of instrumentality “of wide nationalist importance.” That process could instrumentality weeks oregon months.

If the British Supreme Court tribunal declines to perceive Assange’s last appeal, helium could question a enactment of extradition from the European Court of Human Rights, a important ineligible hurdle.

The High Court ruling connected Friday brings Assange 1 measurement person to being turned implicit to U.S. marshals for a formation to Washington, wherever helium would basal proceedings successful national tribunal successful Northern Virginia.

U.S. prosecutors complaint that Assange helped hack into classified accusation and published thousands of pages of subject records and diplomatic cables astir the wars successful Afghanistan and Iraq, which enactment the lives of allies successful danger.

Assange’s supporters accidental helium was acting arsenic an investigative writer who uncovered a trove of damning worldly astir American acts abroad. They accidental the extradition and prosecution volition undermine property freedoms successful the United States.

“How tin it beryllium fair, however tin it beryllium right, however tin it beryllium possible, to extradite Julian to the precise state which plotted to termination him?” Moris said, successful notation to a Yahoo News report that members of the Trump medication discussed kidnapping Assange oregon having him assassinated.

“We volition entreaty this determination astatine the earliest imaginable moment,” Moris said.

In January, a British justice ruled that Assange should not beryllium extradited to the United States due to the fact that helium would beryllium astatine precocious hazard of suicide.

The U.S. authorities appealed that decision, suggesting the psychiatrist who examined him was biased and that Assange’s intelligence wellness was not a obstruction to extradition.

Assange was charged nether the Trump medication with violating the Espionage Act, the archetypal clip U.S. national prosecutors person targeted not conscionable the root but the steadfast of classified information.

Chelsea Manning, the Army backstage who shared concealed diplomatic and subject accusation with WikiLeaks successful 2010, was released from prison nether President Barack Obama but spent astir a twelvemonth successful jailhouse for refusing to attest earlier a expansive assemblage investigating Assange.

Under President Biden, the Justice Department assured the British courts that Assange tin beryllium enactment connected proceedings successful the United States contempt his intelligence wellness issues.

If helium were convicted, the U.S. authorities successful October promised the British courts that Assange would not beryllium sent to the country’s highest-security situation oregon automatically placed successful solitary confinement. He could besides question to service his condemnation successful his autochthonal Australia.

The British High Court sided with the Americans, and Judge Timothy Holroyde said the assurances offered implicit the conditions of Assange’s incarceration successful the United States were some “sufficient” and “solemn undertakings,” promised from 1 authorities to another.

Assange’s defence attorneys maintained the U.S. assurances could not beryllium trusted.

By the clip helium was charged successful the United States nether seal successful 2017, Assange had already spent six years surviving successful Ecuador’s London embassy retired of fearfulness that helium would beryllium extradited to Sweden for a intersexual battle probe and yet to the United States. The Ecuadoran authorities expelled him successful 2019, and helium was promptly arrested by British authorities.

The Justice Department began investigating Assange successful 2010 but nether Obama decided that immoderate prosecution would make a unsafe precedent that could beryllium utilized to spell aft quality organizations. In their indictment of Assange, prosecutors took pains to separate him from accepted journalists, saying that helium had encouraged amerciable hacking and signaling for idiosyncratic reasons.

The radical Reporters Without Borders condemned the High Court determination that Assange tin beryllium extradited, saying helium would look nether the Espionage Act a imaginable beingness imprisonment “for publishing accusation successful the nationalist interest.”

The radical called for the U.S. authorities “to driblet its much than decade-long lawsuit against him erstwhile and for all,” successful enactment with its committedness to support media freedom.

 Weiner reported from Washington.