LONDON | The High Court in London on Friday overturned the refusal to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who Washington wants to try for a massive leak of documents, to the United States.
• Read also: Assange risks suicide if extradited, defense insists
The Court “allows the appeal” brought by the United States, said Judge Tim Holroyde, which means that the courts overturn the first instance decision and that the British courts will have to rule again on the American extradition request .
The British senior magistrates are thus reversing the initial decision of Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who almost a year ago opposed the handing over to the American authorities of the 50-year-old Australian, citing the risk of suicide of the founder of WikiLeaks.
In its ruling on Friday, the court found that the United States had provided assurances on the treatment that would be reserved for the founder of WikiLeaks in the event of extradition, thus responding to the concerns of the trial judge.
The companion of Julian Assange, Stella Moris, immediately denounced a “serious miscarriage of justice”, in a statement transmitted by WikiLeaks.
The United States accuses Julian Assange of having released, as of 2010, more than 700,000 classified documents on American military and diplomatic activities, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prosecuted in particular for espionage, he faces up to 175 years in prison in a case which, according to his supporters, represents an extremely serious attack on press freedom.
Incarcerated in a high security prison near London, Julian Assange was arrested by British police in April 2019 after spending seven years in the London Embassy in Ecuador where he had taken refuge while he was at large under caution.
He feared then an extradition to the United States, or Sweden where he was the subject of charges for rape since abandoned.
“Alcatraz of the Rockies”
During the appeal hearing about his extradition, which took place over two days in late October, the United States sought to reassure the treatment that would be reserved for the founder of WikiLeaks.
The lawyer representing the American government, James Lewis, assured that Assange would not be incarcerated in the very high security prison ADX in Florence, in Colorado, nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”, where are notably held at the almost total isolation of Al-Qaeda members.
American justice would ensure that the founder of WikiLeaks receives the necessary clinical and psychological care and that he can ask to serve his sentence in Australia, he said.
Julian Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, for his part retorted that American insurance does not change anything and that there remains “a great risk of suicide, whatever measures” that would be taken.
Last month, Stella Moris, the companion of Julian Assange with whom he had two children when in recluse at the Ecuadorian embassy, announced that the couple had been granted permission to marry at Belmarsh prison. where the Australian is being held.
He also received the support of some forty French deputies from all sides who pleaded for Julian Assange to benefit from political asylum in France.
Julian Assange is facing prosecution under President Donald Trump. Under the latter’s predecessor, Barack Obama, who had Joe Biden for vice-president, American justice had given up on prosecuting the founder of WikiLeaks.
But the election of Joe Biden to the White House did not bring the inflection hoped for by the Australian’s supporters.
“Deeply concerned”, several NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders, asked in an open letter in mid-October to the US Minister of Justice Merrick Garland to drop these proceedings.