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London (AFP)
Attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will argue on Wednesday that he should be released from a British prison on bail, pending Washington’s appeal against the decision not to extradite him to the United States.
A judge in London on Monday blocked his extradition to face charges for posting hundreds of thousands of secret documents online, assessing that he was at high risk of suicide if transferred.
The United States, which called the ruling “extremely disappointing,” has said it will appeal and has two weeks to present its reasons.
Assange has been held in Belmarsh High Security Prison in south-east London awaiting his final hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court in central London.
The 49-year-old Australian publisher’s protracted legal troubles have become a famous cause of media freedom, despite the judge’s opinion that he had a case to answer in the United States.
At a prior bail hearing in March, he was told that he should be released because he was vulnerable to Covid-19 while behind bars. But the argument was rejected on the grounds that he would probably run away.
He was arrested in 2019 after seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 after Sweden issued an arrest warrant in connection with allegations of sexual assault.
British police removed Assange from the embassy in April 2019 after Ecuador revoked his citizenship.
He was arrested for violating his bail conditions in connection with the Swedish case, which was later withdrawn for lack of evidence, and sentenced to 50 weeks, which the UN described as “disproportionate”.
He has remained in Belmarsh pending the conclusion of the US extradition request.
– ‘Oppressive’ extradition –
Assange remains wanted on 18 charges in the United States, with a maximum sentence of 175 years, related to WikiLeaks’ 2010 release of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Washington claims it helped intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal the 2010 documents before exposing confidential sources around the world.
Assange and his lawyers have long argued that the protracted case is politically motivated.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said Monday that Assange would have been “well aware” of the effects of his leak of secret documents, and his actions went “far beyond” the role of a journalist.
But he said his mental health would likely deteriorate in the US penal system “causing him to commit suicide.”
He 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 supervision.
“For this reason I have decided that extradition would be oppressive for mental damage and I order his release,” he said.
UN Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer welcomed the blocking of Assange’s extradition, but added that he was concerned that “the ruling confirms all the very dangerous logic underlying the US indictment,” which he said. “It is effectively equivalent to criminalizing national security journalism.”
“Mr. Assange must now be immediately released, rehabilitated and compensated for the abuse and arbitrariness to which he has been exposed,” added the UN expert.
After the ruling, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, offered Assange political asylum.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday that Assange was “free to return home” to Australia once the legal cases against him were concluded.
© 2021 AFP
