Julian Assange extradition decision delayed by UK court, allowing time for appeal

LONDON — A court docket in the UK on Tuesday ordered a delay within the doable extradition of Julian Assange, permitting the WikiLeaks founder to proceed his attraction combating a switch to the US to face costs in reference to one of many largest thefts of categorized authorities data in American historical past

Assange is accused of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, who was then an intelligence analyst within the U.S. Military, in a leak of lots of of 1000’s of categorized paperwork, together with about 250,000 U.S. Division of State cables. WikiLeaks started publishing these paperwork in 2010.

The U.S. Division of Justice unsealed in 2019 an 18-count indictment accusing Assange of violating the Espionage Act by allegedly acquiring, receiving and disclosing categorized data.

These costs had been unsealed following Assange’s arrest after he spent seven years residing within the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He is been incarcerated for the final 5 years in Belmarsh Excessive Safety Jail, a maximum-security facility in South London.

The British authorities accredited the extradition after a listening to in London in June 2022.

Alice Jill Edwards, the United Nations particular rapporteur on torture, stated in February she had considerations about Assange’s psychological and bodily wellbeing in jail. She stated Assange “suffers from a depressive dysfunction.”

“Any extradition to the US may be very more likely to exacerbate his medical underlying circumstances — and there’s a very actual threat of suicide,” she stated, based on U.N. Information.

Stella Assange, a longtime associate who married Assange in 2022, added that the WikiLeaks founder had “no prospect” for a good trial underneath the U.S. court docket system.

A U.Ok. Dwelling Workplace spokesperson stated an announcement when the extradition was accredited that the U.Ok. courts had not discovered that an extradition to the U.S. would “be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of course of.”

The spokesperson added, “Nor have they discovered that extradition can be incompatible together with his human rights, together with his proper to a good trial and to freedom of expression, and that while within the US he shall be handled appropriately, together with in relation to his well being.”

Assange, an Australian citizen, had continued interesting the choice. A listening to in February in London’s Excessive Court docket was anticipated to be his ultimate probability inside the U.Ok. courts to cease the abroad switch, though he might select to proceed his attraction with the European Court docket of Human Rights.

The 18 costs introduced towards Assange carry a possible penalty of as much as 175 years in jail, based on the Division of Justice. Officers stated in saying the costs that “sentences for federal crimes are sometimes lower than the utmost penalties.”

A superseding indictment issued in 2020 added allegations that Assange had conspired with the Nameless hacking group.

WikiLeaks printed in 2010 and 2011 a number of caches of categorized U.S. paperwork and different leaked materials. These included a U.S. army video printed in 2010 that the group described as “depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen individuals within the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — together with two Reuters information employees.”

The UK had as of 2022 denied a minimum of 25 earlier extradition requests made by the US in separate instances, based on the Dwelling Workplace.

“If Julian Assange is extradited, he’ll die,” Stella Assange stated forward of the February listening to, based on WikiLeaks.

ABC Information’ Man Davies, Mark Osborne, Jon Haworth, Lucien Bruggeman, Patrick Reevell and Joe Simonetti contributed to this story.