The U.K. High Court in London gave U.S. officials three weeks to provide the assurances and said Assange would be able to appeal his extradition if those promises were not forthcoming. A decision on whether Assange will be granted a full appeal hearing has been pushed back to May 20, provided the United States grants the assurances. Assange is expected to remain for now in London’s Belmarsh prison, where he has been held since 2019.
Legal experts expressed doubt that the United States would have much trouble providing the necessary assurances of not using the death penalty — which isn’t even merited for the charges — and ensuring free speech protections.
Speaking to reporters outside of the High Court, Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, called the decision “astounding.”
“What the courts have done is to invite a political intervention from the United States, to send a letter saying, ‘It’s all okay,’” she said. “The Biden administration should not issue assurances; they should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.”
An indictment filed in Virginia accuses Assange, 52, of helping former Army private Chelsea Manning hack into U.S. systems and obtaining thousands of pages of classified military records and diplomatic cables about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2010. Prosecutors say Assange put lives at risk by publishing the documents, which included unredacted names of sources and other sensitive military details, as part of a mass exposé on WikiLeaks.
Assange’s supporters and several leading news organizations say he was a journalist publishing damning information about U.S. actions abroad and that his extradition and prosecution would set a legal precedent undermining the First Amendment.
The long-stalled case against Assange could begin to move quickly if the extradition is granted by the British courts. But in that event, Assange would then have a final opportunity to appeal his extradition to the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, France.
The WikiLeaks founder would face a maximum sentence of decades in prison if convicted of all charges. The 18-count indictment does not include allegations that Assange published Democratic officials’ emails that were hacked as part of a Russian campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Nick Vamos, a London-based lawyer who previously oversaw extraditions at Britain’s lead prosecutorial agency, noted that Assange’s main arguments — that his prosecution was politically motivated and an assault on journalism — were dismissed.
The High Court made clear that Assange “was not being prosecuted for journalism or for exposing grave state crimes, but for hacking and then publishing the names of sources who were put in serious danger,” he said.
Assange’s marathon battle against extradition “has entered the final stretch, but hasn’t quite reached the finishing line,” he said. The U.S. government would “have little difficulty in providing these assurances and Mr. Assange’s extradition will finally be ordered,” Vamos predicted.
In a 66-page decision Tuesday, judge Victoria Sharp rejected most of Assange’s arguments but found that he had a “real prospect” of success on three grounds: that his extradition would be incompatible with the freedom of expression, that he might face prejudice because of his Australian nationality, and that the current framework for his extradition inadequately protects Assange from the death penalty.
U.S. officials have never raised the prospect of the death penalty in Assange’s case, and none of the criminal statutes under which Assange was indicted allow capital punishment. Assange faces a maximum sentence of five or 10 years in prison for each of the 18 indicted counts. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the ruling Tuesday.
The court gave the U.S. government three weeks to provide assurances that Assange would be permitted to rely on the First Amendment as part of his legal defense, that he would have the same free speech protections as any U.S. citizen, that officials would not seek the death penalty, and that Assange’s nationality would not prejudice his legal proceedings. If the assurances are not given, Assange would be able to appeal his extradition again, the court ruled. He lost a previous appeal at Britain’s highest court in 2021.
“The United States has never prosecuted a U.S. citizen for publishing classified information but seeks to prosecute Mr. Assange,” said Barry Pollack, a U.S.-based attorney for Assange. “This alone demonstrates that he is being afforded less First Amendment protection than the United States provides its own citizens.”
President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in 2017 after she was convicted of Espionage Act and other offenses related to the WikiLeaks disclosures. Justice Department officials declined to pursue charges against Assange during the Obama administration, then reversed course and obtained an indictment under President Donald Trump — but the move stirred controversy. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia disagreed on whether to file charges under the Espionage Act, a law that is typically used to charge sources who leak from inside the government, not the publishers who disseminate the information through their platforms.
Officials under Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of President Biden, have overseen much of the extradition process amid growing international opposition. Australia’s Parliament voted last month to call on the British and U.S. governments to release Assange.
A British judge initially halted Assange’s extradition in January 2021, finding him “a depressed and sometimes despairing man” at high risk of suicide in the solitary or highly restrictive conditions he might face in U.S. custody.
In a letter last year inviting King Charles III to tour the conditions in Belmarsh prison, Assange noted that a fellow inmate facing deportation had died by suicide yards away from his cell.
The U.S. government offered not to impose “special administrative measures” on Assange and to keep him out of the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo., pending trial. U.S. officials agreed to let Assange serve any sentence in Australia if he were convicted, and they noted that Assange would be offered clinical and psychological treatment while in custody.
Britain’s highest court had previously approved the extradition in December 2021, finding that “the United Kingdom and the USA have a long history of cooperation in extradition matters, and the USA has in the past frequently provided, and invariably fulfilled, assurances.” Assange was allowed to raise more arguments after that ruling.
Rizzo reported from Alexandria, Va.
