A British court said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the United States.
Two judges at the High Court in London said today that Assange can formally challenge his extradition from the UK in the long-running dispute over the leak and publication of military secrets.
After a two-hour hearing, at which Assange was not present due to health problems, judges allowed Assange to appeal against his extradition on grounds of freedom of speech and expression. The decision is the latest in the UK’s years-long legal battle Supreme Court ruling in May that asked the US government to provide additional “assurances” about the conditions Assange would face if extradited. In that case, the court said further convincing was needed that Assange would be protected in his right to freedom of expression, that his Australian citizenship would not prejudice him in any trial and that he would then not sentenced to death.
The judges, Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, have now considered both sides’ arguments on the three issues and decided to allow Assange to appeal “assurances” about the conduct of his trial and his charges. First Amendment grounds. (Assange’s team did not object to assurances from the US government that he would not be sentenced to death.)
The decision to accept the appeal, seen as a partial victory for Assange, means the protracted saga is likely to drag on for months to come.
Assange faces 18 charges in the US, all but one under the Espionage Act, for publishing classified information related to the case. The US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A conviction under the act would require prosecutors to prove that Assange not only gathered national defense information but also disclosed it with the intent to harm the United States — a major hurdle for prosecutors. US prosecutor in the case against an award-winning journalist.
Assange’s lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison, although US prosecutors have public statement that they expected him to serve no more than five.
Prosecutors in the US allege that Assange, 52, exceeded his role as a journalist in online conversations with a source, Chelsea Manning, a former military intelligence analyst, by mentioning offered to help the 22-year-old private crack a hashed password that could hypothetically increase her ability to gain illegal access to the Department of Defense’s secret network.
Manning was arrested in 2010 on suspicion of leaking supposedly classified footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad. That damn video is known as Collateral murder, describes a helicopter attack in which at least 12 civilians, including two Reuters journalists, were shot down. (The Pentagon evaluate later that the footage was in fact unclassified.)
Manning, who spent more than a year and a half in pre-trial detention, confessed in 2013 to leaking more than 750,000 documents. One-third of the archive is diplomatic cables that, although described by the Obama administration as highly damaging, are largely diplomatic cables. simply embarrassing to US diplomats who wrote candidly about the behavior of foreign leaders in their reports back home.
