The High Court of London will announce this Tuesday whether it authorizes Julian Assange to appeal your case again in the United Kingdom or if, instead, his extradition to the United States may be activated, approved by the British Government in 2022. Judges Victoria Sharp and Adam Johnson, who heard the parties in two preliminary hearings in February, will decide whether to support or revoke the ruling issued on June 6, 2023 by their colleague Jonathan Swift.

This judge denied him permission to continue appealing in this country and accepted the surrender order signed in June 2022 by the then Minister of the Interior Priti Patel. It is expected that Stella Assange, wife of the computer scientist Australian, who is on remand in London’s Belmarsh prison, make statements on Tuesday outside the court, where dozens of supporters of the WikiLeaks founder will also gather.

Washington demands Assange for 18 crimes of espionage and computer intrusion – punished, according to their defense, with up to 175 years in prison – for the revelations on their website, which in 2010 and 2011 exposed alleged war crimes by the United States in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The former hacker’s lawyers asked the High Court for permission to appeal aspects of the litigation that were not appealed in another process in 2021, as well as the extradition order signed by Patel. If the magistrates agree to your demand, a new appeal trial will begin before the English Justice, which could last over time.

If it is denied, your delivery will be activated

If they deny it, their delivery to the United States will be activated, in which case the defense has already said that it will request precautionary measures to stop it to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the opening of a process there, although there are no guarantees that Strasbourg will accept it.

In listing the arguments that would support his potential appeal, Assange’s lawyers, Edward Fitzgerald and Mark Summers, said in February that his surrender would violate the British-American Extradition Treaty The crimes charged, in his opinion, being of a political nature and against his freedom of expression, in addition to possibly carrying the death penalty.

They also argued that he would not have a fair trial in the United States since, due to the location of the court, the jury would be chosen from people linked to the Government in Washington. Clair Dobbin, on behalf of the US Justice, on his behalf asked the Superior to Disavow the resource and give the green light to deliveryarguing that it is legal because the charges against the accused are not political but “criminal crimes based on evidence” included in the American Espionage Act of 2017.

He stressed that it is incorrect when the defense tries to compare Assange, who it said tried between 2009 and 2015 to recruit hackers for WikiLeaks, with “an ordinary journalist or editor” who uses sources for their news. Julian Assange, who has spent almost 14 years in captivity in England without having been convicted of any crime, was unable to attend the February hearings amid fears about his deteriorating health.

After being initially detained in 2010 at the request of Sweden for a case now archivedthe 52-year-old Australian took refuge in 2012 as a political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, from which he was expelled in 2019 and detained at the request of the United States, which instigated the current process.