US lawyers urge British court to reject Assange appeal bid

Lawyers for the US yesterday called on a UK court to block a last-ditch move by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to prevent his extradition to face spying charges.

Washington indicted the WikiLeaks founder several times between 2018 and 2020 over the platform’s publication of hundreds of thousands of secret military and diplomatic files on the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If he fails with this latest appeal bid, he could be extradited within weeks.

On the second day of the case, heard by two High Court judges, Clair Dobbin, a lawyer for the US government, argued that Assange “solicited” secret US files and published them “indiscriminately”.

“It’s these facts that distinguish him, not his political opinions,” she said.

“The evidence shows that from the time the appellant started WikiLeaks … he sought to recruit individuals with access to classified information. He worked with hackers.”

Assange was absent from the court for the two-day session and did not follow the proceedings on video due to illness, his lawyers told the judges on Tuesday.

His legal team said American authorities were seeking to punish Assange for exposing serious criminal acts by the US.

One of his lawyers, Edward Fitzgerald said there was a risk that Assange “will suffer a flagrant denial of justice” if he is extradited to the US.

“Mr Assange is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practices of obtaining and publishing classified information which is true and of public interest,” he told the court.

He said that, if convicted, Assange could be given a jail sentence of 175 years, but which was likely to be at least 30 years.