The High Court of London on Tuesday gave the Australian activist and journalist Julian Assange until May 20 to appeal his case before the United Kingdom and refused to give the green light to his extradition to the United States, a country that is demanding him for 18 crimes of espionage and computer intrusion. The judges have asked US authorities to give more guarantees about how Assange would be tried in his territory.
After two preliminary hearings held last February, judges Victoria Sharp and Adam Johnson have announced in writing their decision on the fate of the founder of the WikiLeaks portal, who remains detained in the high-security Belmarsh prison, in the east of the British capital.
The magistrates, who took several weeks to evaluate the arguments presented by the parties, have thus revoked the ruling issued on June 6, 2023 by Judge Jonathan Swift, who denied Assange the possibility of continuing to appeal in the United Kingdom and gave his approval to Assange’s handover to the United States. Assange’s extradition had already been signed in June 2022 by the then British Home Secretary, Priti Patel.
The US asks that Assange be extradited for crimes of espionage and computer intrusion, following his explosive revelations on his website, which between 2010 and 2011 revealed alleged US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Assange’s defense, these crimes are punishable by 175 years in prison.
In the February hearings, his lawyers asked the court for permission to appeal parts of the litigation that were not appealed in another process in 2021, as well as the extradition order signed by Patel.
If the judges accept this request, a new appeal process will begin before the English courts, but if it is denied, Assange’s extradition to the United States will be activated. In this last case, the journalist’s defense has announced that she will request precautionary measures to detain her from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the opening of a process there.
The journalist, whose health has deteriorated, according to those close to him, has been in captivity in England for almost 14 years. Assange was arrested for the first time in 2010 at the request of Sweden for a case that has been archived. In 2012 he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but in 2019 he was detained by the British Police, once that country withdrew his asylum status and since then he has been imprisoned.
