UK Court Denies Extradition Request for Julian Assange

An extradition hearing was held on Monday morning in London in the case of Julian Assange. The founder of WikiLeaks has been held in Belmarsh Prison since Ecuadorian authorities allowed him to be arrested at their embassy in London by the UK police in April 2019. In the hearing, the judge denied the US authorities’ request for extradition on the grounds of Assange’s suicidal tendencies. This decision is subject to an appeal and a decision about bail for Assange will be announced on Wednesday.

In the first hearing relating to Assange’s present case in May 2019, he did not consent to his extradition to the US. He said: “I do not wish to surrender myself for extradition for doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many, many people.” As the Guardian reported, such consent would have meant for him a loss of the right to appeal in exchange for a chance for his case to be resolved sooner.

In the present hearing, a ruling was made by the judge regarding Assange’s extradition. At first, the judge said that the Extradition Act of 2003 is the relevant law in this case and that this act allows for extradition for political offences. This touched upon earlier hearing from February 2020. Then, the court had heard Assange’s legal team’s arguments that Assange’s actions of helping to make public classified information had been done for political purposes. The US authorities argued instead that those actions ‘were not inherently political as they did not have the direct purpose of overthrowing the US government or changing US government policy’. The present ruling makes it clear that this argument does not need to be made from either side because it would make no difference either way under the Extradition Act.

According to the judge, Assange’s actions did not just constitute journalism. In her opinion, he had actively helped Chelsea Manning to breach and leak classified files. As Manning was convicted and spent 7 years in prison in the US, Assange could presumably be in a similar position now. The judge further said that Assange had been in contact with Manning, encouraging her to search for more information to release.

The question of whether Assange’s actions constituted journalism or not is important because of the different legal position and protection such classification gives him. The label ‘journalism’ would offer Assange the consideration of ‘balancing’ public interest in making important information available against the damage to the ‘safety of individuals named’ in the leaked documents. Such framing, however, implies ceding ground to US authorities, as it admits that some harm was actually done. This is denied by other defenders of Assange. For example, the journalist Cassandra Fairbanks pointed out that although it is often claimed that Assange even ‘got people killed’, the Pentagon itself ‘testified during the Manning trial that nobody was harmed because of the release’ of information by WikiLeaks The judge further continued by referring to claims by US authorities of having to relocate sources named in the leaked documents. Again, Fairbanks claimed instead that the Department of Defense had admitted they ‘did not even have to move anyone’.

The question of ‘whether it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite’ Assange was also considered by the Judge. She said that there is no evidence the US prosecutors ‘have every intention of punishing Mr Assange’ and that constitutional protections in the US would undoubtedly ensure a fair trial. In contrast to that conclusion, UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer had expressed his concerns over US justice standards in Assange’s case. He feared that ‘his human rights could be seriously violated if he is extradited to the United States’. Melzer continued that Assange could be denied the right to a fair trial or even exposed to torture or other forms of inhumane punishment. He said that he is particularly alarmed by the recent DoJ announcements of charges brought against Assange under the Espionage Act carrying up to 175 year-long sentences. Meanwhile, later in the present hearing, the judge admitted that Assange could be jailed in ADX Florence which is described as a supermax prison, with tougher conditions than a maximum-security prison.

In a turn of events after presenting a decision mostly not looking good for Assange, the judge reached the final argument - that about Assange’s mental health - on the grounds of which she denied the US request for extradition.

The judge noted that in Belmarsh prison, Assange has been considered at risk of suicide. She went on by saying his intentions appear genuine and consistent. On this point, the judge was in line with the aforementioned UN Special Rapporteur, who had argued that ‘Mr. Assange’s health has been seriously affected by the extremely hostile and arbitrary environment he has been exposed to for many years,’ He had described the conditions of Assange’s incarceration as ‘psychological torture’. The judge concluded that, if extradited, Assange would be ‘single-minded in suicidal ideation’.

The US authorities have a right to appeal the decision not to extradite Assange, which they said they would make use of.

The court then went on to decide whether Assange would be released on bail or kept in detention. On the grounds of the judge’s ruling, Assange’s legal team asked to present a formal bail application. This application will be produced in the next two days and the court is set to reconvene on Wednesday to consider it.

If bail was to be granted, this would constitute an enormous victory for Assange, who could walk free, at least for some time, after almost a decade of living in captivity of one type or another. However, it is unlikely that this would happen, as in the UK he was arrested and jailed in 2019 the first place for breaching his bail conditions.

Update - Wednesday 11:30 GMT: 

After hearing the case against granting bail presented by the US prosecutor, the judge decided to keep Assange in custody. Strangely, her reasoning did not reflect many of the points made by the prosecution. Instead, the decision seems to have been based on the claim that the conditions in the British Prison ‘bear no resemblance’ to those Assange ‘would be put under in the United States’. As Belmarsh is sometimes dubbed UK’s Guantanamo Bay, that line of reasoning is somewhat questionable.

There is another way ‘out’ for Assange. As covered by Lotuseaters.com, calls have been getting louder in recent weeks and months for Trump to pardon Assange, among others, to mark the end of his first (and perhaps only) term. Although being granted bail would undoubtedly be significant news, the best-case scenario for Assange still lies in the hands of the US President.

Special thanks to @DefenseAssange on Twitter for providing excellent first-hand coverage of the hearing. Visit assangedefense.org.