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Friday, December 10, 2021

British court rules Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to face charges in U.S.

Mr Assange, 50, is wanted in the U.S. on allegations of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following WikiLeaks’ publication.

• December 10, 2021
Julian Assange
Julian Assange

The U.S. government has won an appeal to overturn Britain’s judge decision that blocked the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain.

The ruling was delivered by The Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett sitting with Lord Justice Holroyde on Friday, after a two- day legal challenge at the Royal Courts of Justice, London back in October.

Granting the extradition of Mr Assange, the senior judges explained that the judge who the delivered the first ruling based her decision on the risk of Mr Assange being held in highly restrictive prison conditions if extradited.

“That risk is in our judgment 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 Burnett said.

 “That conclusion is sufficient to determine this appeal in the USA’s favour.”

Former district judge Vanessa Baraitser had after a multi-week extradition hearing in January ruled that Mr Assange should not be sent to the U.S., citing a real risk of suicide.

Ms Baraitser while delivering her judgement said there was a real risk Mr Assange would be submitted to special administrative measures and detained at the ADX Florence Supermax jail if extradited.

Following the ruling, the  U.S. authorities were given the go-ahead to argue against Ms  Baraitser’s decision on five grounds.

In August, the court heard that the U.S. government’s appeal would argue there was a legal requirement that an individual must be “so ill” that they are unable to resist suicide for a decision to be taken not to prosecute, or in Mr Assange’s case, extradite them.

Clair Dobbin QC, for the U.S., previously said, “It really requires a mental illness of a type that the ability to resist suicide has been lost. Part of the appeal will be that Assange did not have a mental illness that came close to being of that nature and degree.’’

Ms Dobbin also told the court that the need for scrutiny was “substantially increased” given the background, including the “extraordinary lengths” Mr Assange has already gone to in order to avoid extradition.

Mr Assange, 50, is wanted in the U.S. on allegations of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Mr Assange has been held in Belmarsh Prison since 2019 after he was carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London by police before being arrested for breaching his bail conditions.

He had entered the building in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sex offence allegations, which he has always denied and were eventually dropped.

Peoples Gazette in January reported that former U.S. President Donald Trump refused to grant clemency to Mr Assange when he pardoned 73 people on his final day in office, despite calls by top American elites.

Mr Trump pardoned 73 convicts and commuted the sentencing of 70 others in one of his final acts as the president of the United State.

His refusal to pardon the Wikileaks founder drew a lot of criticism from dozens of top political, media and entertainment elite who mounted pressure on the president to end the activists’ decade-long misery.  

However, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the recent court ruling demanding that Mr Assange be released with immediate effect.

In a publication on Friday, RSF  also asked the U.S. government to drop its ‘more than decade-long case against him.’

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