It’s a “dark day” for his supporters, but not the end of the legal soap opera: the British government announced on Friday that it had signed the decree for the extradition to the United States of the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who will appeal this decision.
The 50-year-old Australian is being prosecuted in the United States for a massive leak of confidential documents.
After a long legal tussle with many twists and turns, British justice had formally given the green light on April 20 to its surrender to American justice, but it was up to the British Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, to sign a decree extradition, which she did on Friday.
A spokesperson for the Home Office justified the step by stressing that the extradition of Julian Assange was not “incompatible with his rights, including his right to a fair trial and freedom of expression”, and that in the United States he would be “treated appropriately, including with regard to his health”.
Press freedom organisations, including Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, oppose the extradition, fearing that, despite assurances from the US authorities, Julian Assange will be subjected to conditions of solitary confinement in prison which would aggravate a risk of suicide.
For Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, the extradition of Julian Assange risks putting him “in great danger and would send a frightening message to journalists around the world”.
WikiLeaks denounced “a dark day for freedom of the press” and announced that Julian Assange would appeal to the High Court. He has 14 days to do so.
He is claimed by American justice, which wants to judge him for the dissemination, from 2010, of more than 700,000 classified documents on American military and diplomatic activities, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan. He faces 175 years in prison.
Mr Assange has been detained for three years in the high-security Belmarsh prison, near London, where he married Stella Moris in March. They have two baby boys, conceived when Julian Assange was living at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The founder of WikiLeaks spent seven years in this embassy, where he had taken refuge in 2012, while he was on bail.
He then feared extradition to the United States, or Sweden, where he was the subject of rape proceedings, since abandoned. He was finally arrested by British police in April 2019 and imprisoned.
His wife, a South African lawyer in her 30s, had pleaded with British Home Secretary Priti Patel to prevent his extradition, asking her to put an end to what she considers a “political affair”. “.
“Anyone in this country who cares about free speech should be deeply ashamed that the Home Secretary has approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, the country that plotted his assassination,” he said. she said in a statement Friday.
“Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and editor, and he is being punished for doing his job,” she continued.
“Legal battle” ahead
Stella Assange and WikiLeaks stressed that this “is not the end of the fight. This is just the start of a new legal battle”.
If leave to appeal is granted, the hearing may not take place until early 2023, Kate Goold, a partner at Bindmans law firm and specialist in extradition cases, told the PA agency.
Even if the appeal is refused, the extradition could be delayed for health reasons if Julian Assange “is too ill, for example if he is not fit to fly”.
Mr Assange “also has the ability to appeal the decision to extradite him on human rights grounds, if necessary, to avoid genuine injustice”, she said. He could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), a process likely to take several years