Assange starts final legal battle to avoid extradition
The founder of WikiLeaks is in UK prison
LONDON — Julian Assange’s lawyers opened a final UK legal challenge Tuesday to stop the WikiLeaks founder from being sent to the United States to face spying charges, arguing that American authorities are seeking to punish him for exposing serious criminal acts by the US government.
Lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said Assange may “suffer a flagrant denial of justice” if he is sent to the United States. At a two-day High Court hearing, Assange’s attorneys are asking judges to grant a new appeal, his last legal roll of the dice in Britain.
Assange himself was not in court. Judge Victoria Sharp said he was granted permission to come from Belmarsh Prison for the hearing but had chosen not to attend. Fitzgerald said the 52year-old Australian was unwell.
Stella Assange, his wife, said Julian had wanted to attend, but that his health was “not in good condition.”
“He was sick over Christmas, he’s had a cough since then,” she told the Associated Press. She said the WikiLeaks founder was following proceedings through his lawyers.
Assange’s family and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, including seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and the last five years in the high-security prison on the outskirts of the British capital.
He has been indicted on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of classified US documents almost 15 years ago. American prosecutors say Assange helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk.
To his supporters, Assange is a secrecy-busting journalist who exposed military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They argue that the prosecution is politically motivated and he won’t get a fair trial in the United States.
Hundreds of supporters holding “Free Julian Assange” signs and chanting “there is only one decision – no extradition” held a noisy protest outside the neo-Gothic High Court in London. Rallies were also held in cities around the world, including Rome, Brussels, and Berlin.
“If Julian Assange is successfully extradited to the US, journalists the world over are going to have to watch their back,” said Simon Crowther, legal adviser to human rights group Amnesty International.
Stella Assange told the crowd the case was about “the right to be able to speak freely without being put in prison and hounded and terrorized by the state.”
Referring to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last week, she said: “What happened to Navalny can happen to Julian, and will happen to Julian if he is extradited.”
If the judges rule against Assange, he can ask the European Court of Human Rights to block his extradition — though supporters worry he could be put on a plane to the United States before that happens, because the British government has already signed an extradition order.
Assange’s lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, though American authorities have said the sentence is likely to be much shorter.
While several of Assange’s arguments against extradition have already been rejected by British courts, his lawyers are trying to make new points to secure an appeal.
Assange’s attorneys argued that the prosecution is politically motivated retaliation for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminality on the part of the US government on an unprecedented scale,” including torture and killings.
Lawyers for the US government will set out their case on Wednesday. James Lewis, representing the United States, said Assange was being prosecuted “because he is alleged to have committed serious criminal offenses.”