Assange lawyers to argue treaty prevents extradition

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange’s legal team will argue he should not be extradited to the US because his alleged offences are being framed as “political” in nature, a court heard.

His lawyers believe that a 2007 extradition treaty agreed between the UK and US offers the 48-year-old protection.

Assange appeared via videolink at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday for a case management hearing to set the timetable leading up to a full extradition hearing in February.

He is being held at the high-security Belmarsh Prison ahead of his court fight against extradition to the US, where he faces 18 charges, including conspiring to commit computer intrusion.

Assange is accused of working with former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

He remained silent for much of the 45-minute hearing.

Listing documents being provided to the court, Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Assange, said they included submissions on treaty protection for Assange.

He added: “We say that there is in the treaty a ban on being extradited for a political offence and that these offences as framed, and indeed in substance, are political offences.”

Mr Fitzgerald said Assange’s defence team intended to call up to 21 witnesses for the full extradition hearing.

District judge Vanessa Baraitser confirmed that the extradition hearing was scheduled to be held at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court from February 24 and could last up to four weeks.

Mr Fitzgerald reiterated complaints that the legal team were having “great problems” in seeing the defendant in prison.

Assange’s lawyers previously complained that he had been given access to an unsuitable computer.

Last month more than 60 doctors warned in an open letter addressed to Home Secretary Priti Patel that he could die in prison without urgent medical care and expressed “serious concerns” about his fitness to stand trial.

Assange was jailed for 50 weeks in May for breaching his bail conditions after going into hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex offence allegations, which he denied.

Last month, WikiLeaks welcomed a decision by the Swedish authorities to drop a rape investigation.

Assange has been in custody since he was dramatically removed from the embassy building in April.