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District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said the 49-year-old Australian publisher faced “oppressive” conditions in maximum security isolation if detained in the United States.
FILE: In this file photo taken on May 19, 2017, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange raises his fist before addressing the media on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Image: AFP.
LONDON, UK – A British judge on Monday blocked the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face espionage charges, and found he was at grave risk of suicide.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said the 49-year-old Australian publisher faced “oppressive” conditions in maximum security isolation if he was detained in the United States.
In court, Assange wiped her forehead when the decision was announced, while his fiancee Stella Moris broke down in tears and was hugged by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson.
Outside the Old Bailey court in central London, his supporters who had gathered since early morning erupted into cheers and shouted “Free Assange!”
Assange and his legal team have long argued that the protracted case, which has become a notorious cause for media freedom, was politically motivated.
More than a decade of legal controversy follows, but the ruling is still subject to appeal. Assange was placed in pre-trial detention, but a bail hearing could be heard on Monday.
Any decision to block extradition should meet a high standard given Britain’s treaty obligations, Baraitser said.
But facing the “harsh conditions” likely in the US prison system, Assange’s mental health would deteriorate, “causing him to commit suicide” with the determination of a person with autism spectrum disorder, he ruled, relying on a diagnosis from psychologists. .
Baraitser rejected the testimony of American experts that Assange would be protected from self-harm, noting that others, such as disgraced American financier Jeffrey Epstein, had managed to commit suicide in custody despite the supervision of guards.
“For this reason I have decided that extradition would be oppressive for mental damage and I order his release,” he said.
‘TOO REPRESSIVE’
The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a US nonprofit organization, said the case against Assange was “the most dangerous threat to American press freedom in decades.”
“The extradition request was not decided on press freedom grounds; rather, the judge basically ruled that the United States prison system was too repressive to extradite.”
Assange faced 18 charges in the United States related to the 2010 publication by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If convicted in the United States, Assange would face up to 175 years in jail.
Before the ruling, both Germany and a UN rights expert expressed concern about the humanitarian and human rights problems that extradition presents.
Assange has a history of depression and a respiratory condition that makes him more vulnerable to COVID-19, which has infected several inmates at the high-security prison where he is being held in London.
He has also complained of hearing imaginary voices and music during his detention.
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’
The UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, urged US President Donald Trump to pardon Assange, saying he is not “an enemy of the American people.”
“By forgiving Mr. Assange, Mr. President, you would send a clear message of justice, truth and humanity to the American people and the world,” he wrote in December.
“You would rehabilitate a brave man who has suffered injustice, persecution and humiliation for more than a decade, simply for speaking the truth.”
The prospect of a possible pardon from the outgoing American leader has gained ground following a series of others awarded to various Trump political allies.
Moris, with whom Assange has two young children, also appealed directly to Trump.
In the UK hearing, he was told that Trump promised to pardon Assange if he testified that Russia hacked into the computer servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 election campaign.
WikiLeaks later released the emails, which proved politically damaging to Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, ahead of the vote.
Washington claims Assange helped intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal the 2010 documents before exposing confidential sources around the world.
After Sweden first issued an arrest warrant for Assange in 2010 on allegations of sexual assault, he applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he remained from 2012 to 2019.
In April 2019, Ecuador, by then ruled by right-wing president Lenin Moreno, revoked its citizenship. British police dragged Assange out of the embassy.
He was arrested for breaching the conditions of his bail, but remained in detention pending the ruling on the extradition request.
The previous Swedish assault investigation against him was later dropped due to lack of evidence.
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