The British government gave its approval on Friday to the extradition to the United States of the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, saying it was convinced that he would be entitled to a fair trial across the Atlantic.
Posted at 12:05 a.m.
Home Secretary Priti Patel formally approved the April order against the notorious whistleblower, marking a key step in a long series of legal twists and turns.
She ignored the advice of a group of several hundred doctors who had asked her in a letter last week not to be complicit in the “slow motion execution” of the Australian national.
Members of Doctors for Assange pointed out that the 50-year-old suffered a “mini heart attack” in custody in October 2021 and suffered from mental health issues that put him at serious risk of suicide if extradited.
Those concerns had led a lower court to deny the US request, but the decision was reversed on appeal after Washington provided assurances about how he would be treated.
The Interior Ministry notably recalled these assurances on Friday, stressing that the courts had rejected the idea that it would be “unjust” or “abusive” to extradite Julian Assange.
His team of lawyers has 14 days to appeal the decision.
Espionage charges dating back to 2010
The WikiLeaks founder faces a series of espionage charges in the United States because of his role in obtaining by ex-military Chelsea Manning confidential documents relating to American military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and thousands of diplomatic cables.
The administration of former President Barack Obama, which had been deeply embarrassed by the release of the diplomatic cables, had given up pursuing him, but the administration of his successor, Donald Trump, overruled these reservations.
Current United States President Joe Biden has not changed course despite strong pleas from supporters of Julian Assange to drop the charges and the extradition request.
Julian Assange’s spouse, Stella Moris, said in a press conference broadcast online on Friday that the minister’s decision risked having “extremely serious consequences” for her spouse as well as for the journalistic profession more generally.
She warned that the battle was “far from lost” even if the legal setbacks multiply and that the possible remedies are practically exhausted.
PHOTO JONATHAN BRADY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Stella Moris, Friday, at a press conference
I will spend every waking hour fighting until Julian is free and justice is served.
Stella Moris, spouse of Assange
WikiLeaks executives also tweeted that they would continue to oppose the US extradition request with determination.
The United States, they denounced, seek revenge for the war crimes denounced by Julian Assange “by trying to make him disappear into the darkest recesses of their prison system” and at the same time want to discourage anyone else from restrict.
Support also came from politicians in Britain and abroad.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who heads a coalition of left-wing parties likely to do well in the second round of the French legislative elections, has promised to naturalize Julian Assange if he becomes prime minister.
The new Australian government, recently formed, underlined that the proceedings against the whistleblower had lasted “for too long and must end” without explicitly asking the American justice system to waive the extradition.
PHOTO TIMOTHY A. CLARY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton (right), and his brother, Gabriel Shipton, were outside the British Embassy in New York on Friday asking the United States to drop the charges and the extradition request.
Julian Assange says he has feared for years to be sent to the United States. He had also mentioned this reason in 2012 to explain his decision to take refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The founder of WikiLeaks, who was then facing an extradition request from Sweden for unresolved sexual assault allegations, feared that the Scandinavian country would hand him over to US authorities.
He was eventually arrested in 2019 by British forces with the consent of Ecuador and taken into custody for breach of conditions before being targeted by the US extradition request.