UPDATED

UK: Assange wins right to appeal amid renewed calls for US to drop charges

POSTED ON MAY 20, 2024 

The High Court in London has granted Julian Assange the right to appeal his extradition the United States, prompting fresh hopes for his freedom. 

‘ARTICLE 19 welcomes this decision and now sends a clear message to the United States: drop the charges against Julian Assange and protect press freedom,’ said Quinn McKew, Executive Director for ARTICLE 19. ‘We have repeatedly raised concerns about criminal investigations into Assange and Wikileaks, and pointed out that his extradition would criminalise journalism and have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.’

The High Court decision means the publisher and journalist is able to challenge US assurances about the conduct of a prospective trial, and about whether his right to free speech would be violated. 

Assange faces 17 charges under the US Espionage Act for publishing more that 250,000 classified documents on the Wikileaks website in 2010, plus an additional charge on computer crimes. Assange and his legal team have argued the documents exposed evidence that the US army committed human rights violations in Afghanistan and Iraq and are protected speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wins permission to challenge U.S. extradition

Assange’s last stand?

May 20, 2024

Tasha Kheiriddin

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 23, 2021: Demonstrators march through central London in solidarity with Julian Assange ahead of next week's US extradition appeal hearing at the High Court on October 23, 2021 in London, England.

 WIktor Szymanowicz via Reuters Connect

A British court has ruled that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has the right to appeal his extradition to the United States on espionage charges. The British judges said they did not find assurances from US courts credible when it came to his rights under the First Amendment. This means he likely won't be immediately deported if his extradition is nonetheless ordered at his next hearing, the date of which has not been scheduled.

Assange was indicted in the US in 2018 on 18 charges for the publication of classified documents through Wikileaks, an activist organization he founded in 2006. Assange claims he acted as a journalist exposing US military wrongdoing, while prosecutors counter that he conspired to hack a Pentagon computer and endangered intelligence sources.

Since then, the native Australian has been in “one form of detention or another,” according to his wife Stella Assange, including Britain’s high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019. If he loses his bid to avoid extradition, Assange’s legal team may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. US President Joe Biden is also reportedly considering an Australian request to drop the case.

London court rules WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal extradition order to the US

Assange faces espionage charges in the U.S. for publishing a trove of classified documents that exposed military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two High Court judges on Monday said Julian Assange has grounds to challenge the U.K. government’s extradition order. (Scripps News)

May 20, 2024

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal against extradition to the United States on espionage charges, a London court ruled on Monday — a decision that is likely to further drag out what has already been a long legal saga.

High Court judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said Assange has grounds to challenge the United Kingdom's government’s extradition order.

Assange, 52, has been indicted on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of a trove of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago.

His supporters cheered and applauded outside court as news of the ruling reached them from inside the Royal Courts of Justice.

The Australian computer expert has spent the last five years in a British high-security prison after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years. The WikiLeaks founder was not in court to hear his fate being debated. He did not attend for health reasons, his lawyer said.

Lawyers for Assange argued Monday that the U.S. provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances the WikiLeaks founder would have free press protections if extradited to the U.S.


Ex-CIA employee sentenced 40 years for sharing secrets with Wikileaks

Lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said prosecutors had failed to guarantee that Assange, who is an Australian citizen and claims protections as a journalist for publishing U.S. classified information, could rely on press protections of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“The real issue is whether an adequate assurance has been provided to remove the real risk identified by the court,” Fitzgerald said. “It is submitted that no adequate assurance has been made.”

American prosecutors allege that Assange encouraged and helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published.

Assange’s lawyers have argued he was a journalist who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sending him to the U.S., they said, would expose him to a politically motivated prosecution and risk a “flagrant denial of justice.”

The U.S. government says Assange’s actions went way beyond those of a journalist gathering information, amounting to an attempt to solicit, steal and indiscriminately publish classified government documents.

In March, the two High Court judges rejected the bulk of Assange’s arguments but said he could take his case to the Court of Appeal unless the U.S. guaranteed he would not face the death penalty if extradited and would have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen.


The court said that if Assange couldn’t rely on the First Amendment then it was arguable his extradition would be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which also provides free speech and media protections

.

Pres. Biden to limit classified material after leak

The U.S. provided those reassurances, but Assange’s legal team and supporters argue they are not good enough to rely on to send him to the U.S. federal court system because the First Amendment promises fall short. The U.S. said Assange could seek to rely on the amendment but it would be up to a judge to decide whether he could.

Attorney James Lewis, representing the U.S., said Assange’s conduct was “simply unprotected” by the First Amendment.

“No one, neither U.S. citizens nor foreign citizens, are entitled to rely on the First Amendment in relation to publication of illegally obtained national defense information giving the names of innocent sources, to their grave and imminent risk of harm,” Lewis said.

Some held a large white banner aimed at President Joe Biden, exhorting: “Let him go Joe.”

Assange's lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, though American authorities have said any sentence would likely be much shorter.

Assange’s family and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, which includes seven years spent inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London from 2012 until 2019. He has spent the past five years in a British high-security prison.

Commuters emerging from a Tube stop near the courthouse couldn’t miss a large sign bearing Assange’s photo and the words, “Publishing is not a crime. War crimes are.” Scores of supporters gathered outside the neo-Gothic Royal Courts of Justice chanting “Free Julian Assange” and “Press freedom, Assange freedom.”

President Biden said last month that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the case and let Assange return to his home country.

Officials provided no other details but Stella Assange said it was “a good sign” and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the comment was encouraging.
Copyright 2024 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Jailed Australian-born Assange has been

 involved in legal battles for the past 13

 years

Thomson Reuters · Posted: May 20, 2024 

Stella Assange, wife of the WikiLeaks founder, speaks outside court in London after Monday's ruling to grant permission for his right to appeal. Julian Assange is being held at London's Belmarsh Prison without being convicted. He has been indicted in the U.S. on charges of espionage over the release of a huge trove of classified documents. (Peter Nicholls/Getty Images)

Social Sharing

• Facebook
• X
• Email
• Reddit
• LinkedIn

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was given permission to have a full appeal over his extradition to the United States after arguing at London's High Court on Monday that he might not be able to rely on his right to free speech at a trial.

Two judges at the High Court said they had given him leave to have a full appeal to hear his argument that he might be discriminated against on the basis the Australian-born Assange is a foreign national.

Hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the court ahead of what was a key ruling after 13 years of legal battles, with two judges asked to declare whether they were satisfied by U.S. assurances that Assange, 52, could rely on the First Amendment right if he is tried for spying in the U.S.

The news was met outside court by an eruption of cheering and singing. Assange's legal team had said if he lost he could be on a plane across the Atlantic within 24 hours.

A protester holds placards Monday outside the High Court in London where Assange won the right to a full appeal of an extradition order to the U.S. to stand trial for leaking military secrets. (Kin Cheung/The Associated Press)

His lawyer Edward Fitzgerald had told the judges they should not accept the assurance given by U.S. prosecutors that Australian-born Assange could seek to rely upon the rights and protections given under the First Amendment, as a U.S court would not be bound by this.

"We say this is a blatantly inadequate assurance," he told the court.

Fitzgerald had accepted a separate assurance that Assange would not face the death penalty, saying the U.S. had provided an "unambiguous promise not to charge any capital offence."

• Julian Assange appeals after U.K. orders his extradition to U.S.

• Assange went 'way beyond' journalism, U.S. says at his last-ditch extradition appeal

The U.S. said its First Amendment assurance was sufficient. James Lewis, representing the U.S. authorities, said it made clear that Assange would not be discriminated against because of his nationality in any U.S. trial or hearing.

Asaange's legal team were buoyant after the decision was made. Fitzgerald said it could be months before the appeal was heard.

Case against Assange is ‘offensive’, his

wife says after bid to appeal granted


Stella Assange, the wife of Julian Assange, gives a statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, after he won a bid at the High Court to bring an appeal against his extradition to the US (Lucy North/PA)

By Jess Glass and Callum Parke, PAToday 

Julian Assange’s wife has called for the United States to drop efforts to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder after he won a bid to bring an appeal against his extradition at the High Court.

Assange faces prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

During a two-day hearing in February, lawyers for the 52-year-old asked for the go-ahead to challenge a previous judge’s dismissal of his case to prevent his extradition.

Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson dismissed most of Assange’s legal arguments but deferred their final decision, adding that unless “satisfactory” assurances were given by the US, he would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds.

Julian must be freed. The case should be abandoned. He should be compensatedStella Assange

Those assurances were that Assange would be protected by and allowed to rely on the First Amendment – which protects freedom of speech in the US – that he is not “prejudiced at trial” due to his nationality, and that the death penalty is not imposed.

And, at a hearing on Monday, the two judges granted permission for the challenge over the freedom of speech and nationality points, meaning Assange will be able to bring the appeal.

Hundreds of people had gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the hearing, with supporters cheering as news of the decision filtered out of the courtroom.

Speaking after the hearing, Assange’s wife Stella Assange, said that judges “reached the right decision” and called on the US to drop the “shameful” case.

She said: “We spent a long time hearing the United States putting lipstick on a pig, but the judges did not buy it.



Barrister Edward Fitzgerald KC with Julian Assange’s father John Shipton (second left) and Julian Assange’s wife Stella Assange during Monday’s hearing (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

“As a family we are relieved, but how long can this go on? The United States should read the situation and drop this case now.”

Mrs Assange said the case was “taking an enormous toll on Julian” and that he had been in Belmarsh prison in south east London for over five years.


She continued: “We are relieved as a family that the courts took the right decision today but how long can this go on for? Our eldest son just turned seven.

“All their memories of their father are in the visiting hall of Belmarsh prison, and as the case goes along, it becomes clearer and clearer to everyone that Julian is in prison for doing good journalism, for exposing corruption, for exposing the violations on innocent people in abusive wars for which there is impunity.”

Mrs Assange concluded: “Everyone can see what should be done here. Julian must be freed. The case should be abandoned. He should be compensated.

“He should be given the Nobel prize and he should walk freely with the sand beneath his feet. He should be able to swim in the sea again. Free Assange.”



A campaigner holding a sign outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London (Lucy North/PA)

During the approximately two-hour hearing, lawyers on behalf of the US had said Assange’s bid to bring an appeal should be refused given the promises, provided in a note from the US embassy in London.

James Lewis KC said in written submissions that there is “no question” that Assange, if extradited, “will be entitled to the full panoply of due process trial rights, including the right to raise, and seek to rely upon, the first amendment as a defence”.

But Edward Fitzgerald KC, for Assange, said most of the promises were “blatantly inadequate” but that they had accepted the promise about the death penalty.

Discussing the other points, the barrister said: “This assurance is not and cannot be a knockout. It cannot reassure the court that there is no risk.”

In their previous judgment, which deferred some of the arguments to Monday’s hearing to allow for the assurances from the US, Dame Victoria and Mr Justice Johnson said: “If he is not permitted to rely on the First Amendment because of his status as a foreign national, he will thereby be prejudiced, potentially very greatly prejudiced, by reason of his nationality.”

She concluded: “It follows that it is arguable that the applicant might be treated differently at trial on the grounds of his nationality.”

In a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, while ruling against him on all other issues.

Later that year, US authorities won their High Court bid to overturn this block, paving the way towards Assange’s extradition.

However, if ultimately successful with his appeal, Assange could avoid extradition, though a further appeal from the US would be likely.

‘Positive news’ for defenders of press

 freedom as Assange granted

 permission to appeal

© David Levenson/Getty Images

May 20, 2024

Reacting to the High Court’s decision to grant Julian Assange permission to appeal his extradition to the United States, Simon Crowther, Legal Adviser at Amnesty International, said:

“The High Court’s decision is a rare piece of positive news for Julian Assange and all defenders of press freedom. The High Court has rightly concluded that – if extradited to the USA, Assange will be at risk of serious abuse, including prolonged solitary confinement, which would violate the prohibition on torture or other ill-treatment.

“The USA’s ongoing attempt to prosecute Assange puts media freedom at risk worldwide. It ridicules the USA’s obligations under international law, and their stated commitment to freedom of expression. In trying to imprison him, the US is sending the unambiguous message that they have no respect for freedom of expression, and that they wish to send a warning to journalists and publishers everywhere: that they too could be targeted, for receiving and publishing classified material — even if doing so is in the public interest.

“As the fight continues in the UK courts, we call on the USA to finally put an end to this shameful saga, by dropping all the charges against Assange. This would bring the process in the UK to an immediate halt, and Julian Assange will be freed. Assange has already spent five years in prison in the UK, much of which has been arbitrary.”

Background

On 20 May, the UK High Court has announced its decision that Julian Assange will have permission for his appeal against extradition to the US to go ahead. This follows the US authorities filing fresh diplomatic assurances, after a hearing that took place on 20-21 February.

Amnesty International has reiterated concerns that Assange faces the risk of serious human rights violations if extradited to the US and has warned of a profound ‘chilling effect’ on global media freedom.

Press freedom means protecting 

Julian Assange

 Andrew Tettenborn

The Spectator 

20 May 2024

Credit: Getty Images

James Cleverly won’t be able to move the Julian Assange file out of his inbox quite yet after all. The High Court has allowed Assange to appeal once more against extradition to the US on the basis that no sufficient assurances have been received over his ability to rely on the First Amendment if tried there.

We don’t know what the result will be (today’s hearing merely gave permission to appeal, with no guarantee as to its outcome). Nevertheless, we should still think twice before we hope that the appeal will ultimately be dismissed, thus allowing the final removal of someone who has been a thorn in the UK authorities’ side for nearly 15 years.

This is Assange’s second brush with extradition law. In 2012, he stymied a largely ordinary rendition to Sweden on charges of sexual assault and rape (which he denies) by remaining holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years, until the Swedish government lost interest. The present request by the US, the subject of today’s hearing, was on entirely different charges, namely conspiracy to obtain and disclose US defence information contrary to the US Espionage Act, arising out of the Chelsea Manning leaks which he collaborated with the Guardian in publicising, and also in large measure revealed in Wikileaks, in 2010. Assange denies any wrongdoing.

In law there is no doubt that, subject to any quibbles over assurances from Washington, this is an entirely regular request from the State Department. There are nevertheless several reasons that should give us pause about allowing extradition for state crimes of this kind.

One is the effect on press freedom. 

True, technically Assange is alleged to have committed an offence in the US by suborning people there to provide him with secret information. But the essence of Washington’s complaint is that Assange, a journalist in England with no connection with the US, has published, in England, material classified in the US that is contrary to US espionage law. Admittedly in this case the leaks could hurt us too, since we make much common cause in defence with the US. But this will not always be so. Imagine a request from, say, South Africa, India, or Brazil, alleging abstraction of classified information there on the orders of a UK columnist and its publication here. The same would apply. Unless the journalist can show a likelihood of prejudice or oppression if sent for trial, extradited he must be. In short, the vital ability of the press in Britain to publish what it likes about foreign regimes provided it obeys our law, whatever their own law may say, is now seriously in doubt.

The second reason is more general. Fifty years ago, our law did not only bar extradition of those likely to face persecution. It also, broadly, prevented extradition for any non-terrorist offence of a ‘political character’, something that automatically excluded matters such as espionage and other anti-state offences. Unfortunately, this principle was abandoned as regards European states with the adoption of the European Arrest Warrant (something which, three years ago, nearly led to Clara Ponsati, a vocal Catalonian separatist who later took up a teaching job in Scotland, being forcibly bundled onto a plane to Madrid to face criminal charges of subversion before a Spanish court). Later in 2003 the Labour government suppressed the principle altogether in a new Extradition Act. 

This is unfortunate. An attractive feature of Britain was once a libertarian insistence that, however friendly its relations with another state, friendship did not extend to helping that state with its dirty work in rounding up subversives. But today libertarianism of that kind is unfashionable. Even if you have fallen foul of your government, you are in the UK’s eyes just like any other criminal: if your government makes a request, even for a state offence, the UK will happily hand you over unless you can show that you are likely somehow to receive unfair treatment when sent back to face it: something that can be easier said than done.

And this raises a third point. Whatever you may think of asylum claims in general, the extradition rules that the courts now have to apply subvert what was once a proud British tradition. In the nineteenth century, our political life was much enriched by the fact that critics of foreign governments were allowed, assuming they were reasonably well-behaved, to carry on their campaigns here. Not only did the law protect them from rendition for offences like sedition; in addition, all extradition requests had to be approved by the Home Secretary, who if he felt that the foreign government was overstepping the mark, could simply refuse to give effect to them. This too has unfortunately gone. The entire process is now legalistic: if the legal requirements for extradition are satisfied, then whatever the Home Secretary’s view, he is bound by law to go ahead with the extradition.

In short, Britain has now apparently bound itself in a tangled web of law to abandon its tradition of harbouring dissidents, and has to hand over someone in Julian Assange’s position, whatever electors and their representatives think of the case and whatever the knock-on effects on the freedom of the press. We now need a movement to draw attention to this. There is much to be said for Rishi Sunak setting up a body to revisit our extradition law to make sure this kind of thing does not happen in future.

WRITTEN BY

Andrew Tettenborn

Andrew Tettenborn is a professor of law at Swansea Law School

Julian Assange faces judgment day in years-long fight to stay out of US court

BY NICK ROBERTSON - 05/19/24 

JEREMY CORBYN AT ASSANGE PROTEST

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will face a British High Court on Monday to ultimately decide whether the accused classified information leaker will be extradited to the U.S. after more than a decade of legal battles.

Assange has been in British custody since 2019 after the Ecuadorian government revoked his political asylum status and kicked him from their London embassy after seven years. He faces 18 charges in the U.S. over WikiLeaks’s publication of hundreds of thousands of classified military and intelligence documents in 2010. 

American prosecutors claim the Australian worked with military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal the documents — including secret diplomatic cables and military information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and distribute them online. Manning was convicted and served seven years in prison for her role in the scheme.

Supporters have painted Assange as a victim of political persecution, targeted for his work as a journalist because it shed a poor light on the U.S. military. The leaked information included records of airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed civilians.

“Julian has been indicted for receiving, possessing and communicating information to the public of evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. government,” his wife, Stella Assange, told The Associated Press. “Reporting a crime is never a crime.”

Assange initially sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy to escape a Swedish rape investigation, and out of fear that he could be extradited to the U.S. for his WikiLeaks work. The rape investigation was later dropped in 2021, given the passing of time.

After serving a one-year sentence in U.K. prison for avoiding bail after he was arrested in 2019, a British judge initially blocked his extradition to the U.S. in 2021. The judge ruled that Assange was likely to kill himself if sent to the U.S., given the harsh conditions of the country’s prison system.

The British government finally allowed his extradition in 2022, which he appealed.

The crux of Monday’s High Court hearing is whether assurances from the U.S. government can overcome concerns for Assange’s well-being.

Stella Assange said the “so-called assurances” — including that prosecutors would not pursue the death penalty — were made up of “weasel words.”

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said the judges had asked if Assange could rely on First Amendment protections.

“It should be an easy yes or no question,” Hrafnsson said. “The answer was, ‘He can seek to rely on First Amendment protections.’ That is a ‘no.’ So the only rational decision on Monday is for the judges to come out and say, ‘This is not good enough.’ Anything else is a judicial scandal.”

If the three-judge panel sides with Assange’s arguments and does not allow his extradition, it sets up years more of legal fighting. If the court allows his extradition, Assange’s legal team has said they will ask the European Court of Human Rights to intervene.

President Biden could also step in on the case, fulfilling an Australian government request to drop the charges and let Assange return to his home country. Biden said last month that he is “considering” the request.

Updated on May 20 at 5:32 a.m.