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The turning point for Assange came with the last point of judicial reasoning
| Reading time: 4 minutes
“In the end there was a decisive turning point”
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will not be extradited to the United States. WELT correspondent Stefanie Bolzen was one of the few journalists who participated in announcing the verdict. You can find out how the judge justifies his decision here.
The decision to extradite Julian Assange was eagerly awaited. The judge takes his time to justify his judgment. It appears that she would grant the United States request. But then it comes to “mental health” to speak.
ORShortly after 10 a.m. local time Monday, Julian Assange entered the great wood-paneled courtroom at the Old Bailey, London’s Supreme Court. Wearing a dark blue suit, a grayish-green crown mask draped over his mouth, the 49-year-old took a seat on the dock and briefly confirmed his date of birth.
The Australian native looked well-groomed, very different from his spectacular arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy nearly two years ago. On the other side of Assange, separated by a Plexiglas panel and many meters away, a magistrate had to decide the fate of the founder of Wikileaks shortly after.
Vanessa Baraitser took the time to justify her judgment. After nearly an hour, it seemed almost clear to observers that she would allow the extradition request from the American judiciary. The English judge did not accept Assange’s accusation that the trial against him was politically motivated, nor that his disclosure of intelligence information was justified by freedom of the press. Baraitser also described the possible serious consequences of a separation for his family as “sadly not unusual.”
But the turning point came with the last point of judicial justification. “I come now to the question of health,” Baraitser introduced the decisive argument with which he would finally reject the United States’ extradition request. It was based on the experience of four psychiatrists who had thoroughly examined and observed the accused. Assange suffers from “severe depression” with “schizophrenic characteristics”, he is autistic and there have been several suicides in his family. In 1991 he tried to cut his wrists.
In May 2019, Assange managed to smuggle a razor blade into his cell at Balmarsh Prison. The Wikileaks founder was arrested for violating the conditions of his bail after being deported from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had found refuge for seven years. “He has the intellect and the will to carry out his suicide plans,” Baraitser says, as Assange listens cross-legged and knees his fingers incessantly.
In the United States, Assange is threatened with being taken to the ADX Florence prison in Oklahoma after being found guilty of espionage, the lawyer argued. The detention center is considered a maximum security prison, in which those convicted of terrorism and other serious crimes are imprisoned, many in strict isolation. Inmates commit suicide repeatedly.
Belmarsh was able to respond to Assange’s suicidal thoughts, for example, by reducing isolation measures, according to Baraitser. The opposite is the case in the United States prison. External communication is limited to two phone calls per month. “I am convinced that the risk of suicide is substantial,” said the lawyer, who concluded her trial with the words: “Mr. Assange’s mental health is of such importance that his extradition to the United States of America was an act of cruelty. “.
Julian Assange wiped his forehead after these words. His partner Stella Morris, a mother of two, burst into tears. Separated through the glass, the couple spoke briefly before Assange’s legal team announced their intention to request bail. This will be negotiated next Wednesday. Cheers broke out among Assange supporters on the street in front of the London City Court.
The London judge’s verdict is an important chapter in a ten-year saga that doesn’t just focus on the highly controversial figure Julian Assange. It is much more about the question of what journalism is allowed and what only the state. If the publication of secret service material is in the public interest if it exposes crimes of the state and its institutions, but at the same time endangers members of these institutions. Is Assange an “enemy of the state” that the US military officially declared him to be? Or a hero of freedom of the press, freedom of expression and democracy, who is made especially by those who see the State as fundamentally corrupt?
War crimes against innocent civilians in Iraq
Wikileaks posts revealed serious war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, who murdered innocent civilians while apparently having fun. Amnesty International and other organizations warned before the London ruling that extradition would be a blow to press freedom. Especially since the accusations made by the United States judiciary could also be used in other cases. Berlin had called on the British judiciary to take into account “humanitarian and human rights aspects” in its trial.
The United States judiciary will appeal the ruling. Based on 18 counts, Assange is threatened with up to 175 years in prison. Joe Biden’s staff was wary of the verdict. The Assange wiki leaks fell under Barack Obama in 2010. Endangering the lives of American soldiers in war zones is something Democrats have hardly forgiven Assange ever since.
