Julian Assange may appeal against his extradition from London to the US

Australian Julian Assange, jailed in London since his 2019 arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy, ​​was allowed on Monday to appeal to the British High Court against a December ruling allowing his extradition to the United States.

“I am relieved beyond what I can express,” she told the AFP Sue Barnett, a 61-year-old protester from Nottingham in northern England, holding a banner reading “10 years is enough, free Assange now.”

“We all feared the worst,” she added, surrounded by several dozen supporters of the WikiLeaks founder who had gathered outside the High Court in London and encouraged motorists to sound their horns in support.

“There is only one decision, no extradition,” one of them shouted with the help of a megaphone.

Washington wants to try Assange, 50, for the publication beginning in 2010 on WikiLeaks of some 700,000 secret diplomatic and military documents, mainly related to the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On December 10, the US government had managed to get a London appeals court to overturn a previous decision not to hand him over.

But former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, international coordinator for Assange’s defense, had announced that they would use “all national and international resources to defend someone who has not committed any crime and has heroically and courageously resisted persecution for more than eleven years.” defend freedom of expression and access to information”.

However, in the United Kingdom, justice must first authorize the appeal before the Supreme Court, which now has yet to decide whether to accept the case.

Freedom of expression or espionage

In the first instance, a London judge had prevented the extradition in January 2021 on the grounds that Assange, in fragile mental health, could commit suicide if handed over to the United States judicial system.

But Washington’s lawyers appealed, guaranteeing that he would not be held in punitive isolation in a maximum-security federal prison and that he would receive adequate medical treatment.

Assange’s case has become a cause for the defenders of freedom of expression, for whom WikiLeaks has the same rights as other media to publish secret material, if it is in the public interest.

But the US government, which has charged him with 18 charges including espionage, says Assange is not a journalist but a hacker and the release of unredacted documents put his informants’ lives in danger.

If extradited, he could be sentenced to a maximum of 175 years, although the exact sentence is difficult to calculate.

A coalition of anti-war associations and thousands of peace advocates signed a statement Friday calling for his immediate release.

“The (US President Joe) Biden administration stands up to America’s adversaries for its press freedom shortcomings, but it should address its own hypocrisy,” said Nathan Fuller, director of the Courage Foundation.

“Locking up Julian Assange for exposing the truth about America’s wars is an insult to all who fight for peace and human rights,” he added.

The Australian’s fiancée, South African lawyer Stella Moris, charged that he has spent more time in prison than many prisoners convicted of violent crimes.

Assange has been held in the Belmarsh high-security prison, near London, since he was arrested by surprise inside the Ecuadorian embassy in April 2019 after then-president Lenín Moreno withdrew the asylum granted by his predecessor Rafael Correa.

First it was in compliance with a British sentence for having breached the conditions of his parole by taking refuge in the legation to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault charges since dropped. The Australian claimed to fear being sent from there to the United States.

Later, he was kept in preventive detention while his extradition is decided, since the judge considered that he could try to escape again if he was released. (I)