U.K. COURT: ASSANGE CAN BE EXTRADITED TO THE U.S.

A British court ruled Friday that Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face charges that could result in decades of jail time, reversing a lowercourt decision in the longrunning case against the embattled WikiLeaks founder.

The ruling was a victory, at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Assange begun under the Trump administration. But Assange will seek to appeal the decision to Britain’s Supreme Court, according to his legal team.

The Justice Department’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act in connection with obtaining and publishing secret government documents has raised novel First Amendment issues and alarmed advocates of media freedom. But because he has been fighting extradition, those questions have not been litigated, and his transfer to the United States could set off a momentous constitutional battle.

The extradition case in Britain has not turned on whether the charges against Assange are legitimate — a lower-court judge ruled they were — but on whether U.S. prison conditions are too harsh for his mental health.

In ruling that Assange can be extradited, the High Court in London said it was satisfied by assurances provided by the Biden administration that it would not hold him under the most austere conditions reserved for high-security prisoners and that, if he were to be convicted, it would let him serve his sentence in his native Australia if he requested it.

Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, said the government was “pleased by the ruling” and would have no further comment. But an American lawyer for Assange, Barry J. Pollack, denounced the ruling, calling it “disturbing” that the British court accepted the U.S. government’s “vague assurances” of humane treatment.

“The U.K. court reached this decision without considering whether extradition is appropriate when the United States is pursuing charges against him that could result in decades in prison, based on his having reported truthful information about newsworthy issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

Assange fled into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 when he was facing an investigation on allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, which were eventually dropped. He said he feared his human rights would be violated if he was extradited in that case.

He remained in the embassy for seven years until he was ejected in 2019. The United States unsealed an indictment against him on hacking charges on the day of his expulsion and then charged him under the Espionage Act weeks later. He has been detained in London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019.

The complex case against Assange centers on his 2010 publication of diplomatic and military files leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst — not on his publication during the 2016 election of Democratic emails stolen by Russia.