Hamilton Journal News

U.K. court: Assange can’t be extradited until U.S. rules out death penalty

- By Sylvia Hui and Jill Lawless

LONDON — A British court ruled Tuesday that Julian Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authoritie­s guarantee he won’t get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site’s publicatio­n of classified American documents.

Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authoritie­s give further assurances within three weeks about what will happen to him. The ruling means the legal saga, which has dragged on for more than a decade, will continue, and Assange will remain in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has spent the last five years.

Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said the U.S. must guarantee that Assange, who is Australian, “is afforded the same First Amendment protection­s as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed.”

The judges said that if the U.S. files new assurances,

“we will give the parties an opportunit­y to make further submission­s before we make a final decision on the applicatio­n for leave to appeal.”

The judges said a hearing will be held May 20 if the U.S. makes those submission­s.

Assange’s supporters say he is a journalist protected by the First Amendment who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanista­n that was in the public interest. They have argued his prosecutio­n is politicall­y motivated and he can’t get a fair trial in the U.S.

The ruling follows a February hearing in the High Court, where Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said U.S. authoritie­s were seeking to punish him for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminalit­y on the part of the U.S. government on an unpreceden­ted scale,” including torture and killings.

The U.S. government said Assange’s actions went beyond journalism by soliciting, stealing and indiscrimi­nately publishing classified government documents that endangered innocent lives.

 ?? ALBERTO PEZZALI/ ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? A demonstrat­or holds a placard after Stella Assange, wife of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, released a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday.
ALBERTO PEZZALI/ ASSOCIATED PRESS A demonstrat­or holds a placard after Stella Assange, wife of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, released a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday.

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