Julian Assange to exhaust all UK appeals if he loses (Documents)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was absent from a London court due to illness on Tuesday as his lawyers launched a final appeal against extradition to the United States to face trial over the publication of secret military and diplomatic documents.
Washington wants the Australian extradited because he was charged multiple times in the United States between 2018 and 2020 over WikiLeaks’ 2010 release of documents related to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At two days of hearings in Julian Assange’s absence, his lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said the prosecution was unjustified.
“He is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic conduct in obtaining and publishing confidential information that is both true and of clear and significant public interest,” Fitzgerald said.
Earlier, he told Judge Victoria Sharp that his 52-year-old client was “not feeling well today” and would not appear at London’s High Court in person or by video.
Julian Assange’s wife Stella thanked a group of protesters ahead of the hearing, saying: “Please continue to show up and support Julian and us until Julian is free.”
The crowd outside the court chanted “Free Julian Assange.”
“We have two big days left. We don’t know what will happen, but you are here because the world is watching,” Stella Assange added.
“They just can’t get away with it. Julian needs his freedom and we all need the truth.”
A protracted legal saga in the British courts is coming to an end after Julian Assange lost consecutive rulings in recent years.
If this week’s appeal is successful, he will have another chance to argue his case in a London court, with a date set for a full hearing.
If he loses, Julian Assange will exhaust all UK appeals and extradition proceedings will begin.
However, Stella Assange said her husband would ask the European Court of Human Rights to temporarily halt extradition if needed, warning he would die if sent to the United States.
“Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow will determine whether he lives or dies and he is clearly in a very difficult position both physically and mentally,” she told BBC radio on Monday.
US President Joe Biden faces ongoing domestic and international pressure to drop the 18-count indictment brought against Julian Assange in Virginia federal court under his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Major media organizations, press freedom advocates and Australia’s parliament have condemned the prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917, which was never used to publish classified information.
– ‘Enough is enough’ –
Washington maintained the case, accusing Julian Assange and others at WikiLeaks of recruiting and agreeing with hackers to carry out “one of the largest leaks of classified information” in U.S. history.
Julian Assange, who has been held at the high-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London since April 2019, was arrested after spending seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
He fled there to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault charges that were later dropped.
The High Court blocked his extradition, but the decision was overturned on appeal in 2021 after the United States vowed not to hold him in its most extreme prison, ADX Florence.
It also pledged not to subject him to a harsh regime known as “special administrative measures.”
In March 2022, the UK Supreme Court rejected the appeal, holding that Julian Assange failed to “raise a controversial legal point.”
The extradition order was officially signed months later by former home minister Priti Patel, but Julian Assange is now seeking permission to review the decision and appeal the ruling in 2021.
If convicted in the United States, he faces up to 175 years in prison.
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson told reporters last week that the caveats contained in the U.S. pledges meant they were “not worth the paper they are written on.”
On the same day, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the years-long legal pursuit of Julian Assange, saying “enough is enough”.
Earlier, the Australian Parliament passed a motion to end the prosecution against him.
Julian Assange and his wife (a lawyer he met while working on his case) have two children.
After morning court proceedings, Hrafson told Julian Assange’s supporters that a protest march would be held later on Tuesday to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
