We won’t lock Assange away in ‘supermax’ jail, pledge US
Lawyer: He can do his time in Oz
WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange will not be sent to an American ‘supermax’ jail if he is extradited from Britain, US authorities vowed yesterday.
The 50-year-old would also be able to serve any prison sentence in his native Australia.
Assange is wanted in the US on espionage charges over the release in 2010 and 2011 of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
American lawyers yesterday renewed their bid to extradite him after an initial attempt was dismissed by a judge in January, citing Assange’s risk of suicide.
He is being held in Belmarsh Prison, southeast London, having been removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019 following seven years in political asylum.
Around 100 protesters at the High Court in London yesterday demanded Assange’s release. James Lewis QC, the US lawyer, said the district judge who refused extradition had ‘based her decision’ on the risk that Assange would be placed in solitary confinement and detained at the ADX super-maximum (supermax) security prison in Colorado. District judge Vanessa Baraitser believed this was likely to facilitate a significant deterioration in Assange’s mental health. However, Mr Lewis said this would not be the case and if convicted, he can serve any prison sentence in his home country of Australia. Assange appeared via videolink from Belmarsh with shoulder-length white hair. He occasionally laid his head on the table in front of him. Outside court, his partner Stella Moris said she was ‘very concerned for Julian’s health’. The hearing will continue today.