US challenges WikiLeaks’ Assange extradition block in UK court

Gulf Today Report

The US government will on Wednesday appeal against a British judge's decision to block the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face trial for publishing military secrets.

At a two-day hearing, Washington will ask the High Court to overturn District Judge Vanessa Baraitser's January ruling that Assange is a serious suicide threat if extradited across the Atlantic.

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In January, a lower court judge refused an American request to extradite Assange on spying charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret military documents a decade ago.

The United States has said it was "extremely disappointed" at her decision, arguing the judge "didn't appreciate the weight" of expert evidence that said Assange was not at risk of suicide.

The High Court granted the US government's request to appeal against the ruling on five grounds.

Judge Baraitser denied extradition on health grounds, saying Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions. But she rejected defense arguments that Assange faces a politically motivated American prosecution that would override free-speech protections, and she said the US judicial system would give him a fair trial.

Its lawyers have argued Baraitser was "misled" in evidence from Assange's psychiatric expert Michael Kopelman, who they claim concealed things such as that his client had fathered children while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

During a preliminary hearing in August, the High Court granted the US government's request to appeal against the ruling on five grounds.

Whatever the court's two senior judges decide, months if not years of further legal wrangling loom.

If the US appeal is successful, the case will be sent back to a lower court for a new decision. And whoever loses can also ask for permission for a further, final appeal to the UK's Supreme Court.

The prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published. Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange, 50, has been in prison since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that he spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy, where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.