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JULIAN ASSANGE CAN BE EXTRADITED TO THE US, COURT RULES

By Becky Morton
BBC News

Published1 day ago
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Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Julian Assange pictured leaving court in January 2020

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited from the UK to the US, the
High Court has ruled.

The US won its appeal against a January UK court ruling that he could not be
extradited due to concerns over his mental health.

Judges were reassured by US promises to reduce the risk of suicide. His fiancee
said they intended to appeal.

Mr Assange is wanted in the US over the publication of thousands of classified
documents in 2010 and 2011.

Senior judges found the lower judge had based her decision in January on the
risk of Mr Assange being held in highly restrictive prison conditions if
extradited.

However, the US authorities later gave assurances that he would not face those
strictest measures unless he committed an act in the future that merited them.


 * Profile: Julian Assange
 * Assange given permission to wed partner in prison

Giving the judgement, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said: "That risk is in our
judgement excluded by the assurances which are offered.

"It follows that we are satisfied that, if the assurances had been before the
judge, she would have answered the relevant question differently."

Mr Assange's fiancee Stella Moris called the ruling "dangerous and misguided",
adding that the US assurances were "inherently unreliable".

In an emotional statement outside the court, Ms Moris said: "For the past... two
years and a half, Julian has remained in Belmarsh prison, and in fact he has
been detained since 7 December 2010 in one form or another, 11 years. For how
long can this go on?"

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Media caption,
Watch Stella Moris, Julian Assange's fiancée, give an emotional speech after the
extradition ruling

Wikileaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said in a statement: "Julian's life
is once more under grave threat, and so is the right of journalists to publish
material that governments and corporations find inconvenient.

"This is about the right of a free press to publish without being threatened by
a bullying superpower."



Amnesty International described the ruling as a "travesty of justice" and the US
assurances as "deeply flawed".

Nils Muiznieks, the human rights organisation's Europe director, said it "poses
a grave threat to press freedom both in the Unites States and abroad".

Judges ordered the case must return to Westminster Magistrates' Court for a
district judge to send it formally to Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Mr Assange's legal team - Birnberg Peirce Solicitors - said any appeal to the
Supreme Court would relate to the question of assurances, rather than on issues
such as free speech or "the political motivation of the US extradition request".




Two of the country's most senior judges have concluded there is nothing in law
to stop the UK sending Julian Assange to America.

In line with previous cases, the Lord Chief Justice and Lord Justice Holroyde
ruled that when the US administration gives a promise to the UK of fair and
humane treatment of a detainee, its word should not be doubted.



Team Assange are likely to try to reverse this judgement in two ways. First,
they want to challenge last January's findings that his leaks amounted to an
alleged crime - but it is not clear if such an appeal would be heard.

Second, they may ask the Supreme Court to examine today's judgement on the US's
diplomatic assurances - but there is no guarantee it will take the case because
they would have to argue that there is a fundamental problem with the law -
which has never been the case in the past. And so time may be running out.



The US had offered four assurances, including that Mr Assange would not be
subject to solitary confinement pre or post-trial or detained at the ADX
Florence Supermax jail - a maximum security prison in Colorado - if extradited.

Lawyers for the US said he would be allowed to transfer to Australia to serve
any prison sentence he may be given closer to home.

And they argued Mr Assange's mental illness "does not even come close" to being
severe enough to prevent him from being extradited.

But lawyers representing Mr Assange argued the assurances over his future
treatment were "meaningless" and "vague".

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Media caption,
Watch: The background to Julian Assange's extradition case

If convicted in the US, Mr Assange, 50, faces a possible penalty of up to 175
years in jail, his lawyers have said. However the US government said the
sentence was more likely to be between four and six years.

Mr Assange faces an 18-count indictment from the US government, accusing him of
conspiring to hack into US military databases to acquire sensitive secret
information relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which was then published
on the Wikileaks website.

He says the information exposed abuses by the US military.

But US prosecutors say the leaks of classified material endangered lives, and so
the US sought his extradition from the UK.

Extradition is the process under which one country can ask another to hand over
a suspect to face trial.

Mr Assange was jailed for 50 weeks in May 2019 for breaching his bail conditions
after going into hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

He sought refuge in the embassy for seven years from 2012 until he was arrested
in April 2019.

At the time he fled to the embassy, he had been facing extradition to Sweden on
allegations of sexual assault which he denied. That case was later dropped.

Despite serving his sentence for breaching bail conditions, Mr Assange remains
in prison while he fights extradition because of his history of absconding.


RELATED TOPICS

 * Julian Assange
 * High Court
 * Wikileaks
 * United States


MORE ON THIS STORY

 * US begins legal appeal to extradite Assange
   
   Published27 October

 * Assange's US extradition blocked on health grounds
   
   Published4 January

 * Assange given permission to wed partner in prison
   
   Published11 November

 * Assange to stay in jail over absconding fears
   
   Published13 September 2019

 * The background to Julian Assange's extradition case
   
   Published1 day ago

 * Profile: Julian Assange
   
   Published23 September 2020





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