Judges Victoria Sharp and Adam Johnson gave a break, albeit partial, to Julian Assange, 52, on Monday. Both have rejected as insufficient the guarantees provided by the United States Government that the co-founder of Wikileaks would receive a fair trial if he was finally extradited. In this way, the court grants the publisher’s legal team the possibility of once again appealing his surrender before the British justice system.
The relief is minimal, because Assange must remain under provisional arrest in the Belmarsh maximum security prison, on the outskirts of London, where he has been locked up since April 2019.
“I want to be very clear: today there has been a definitive change,” the prisoner’s wife, Stella Assange, celebrated the judicial decision. He was addressing the hundreds of people gathered early in the morning in front of the Gothic building that houses the courts of England and Wales. “The United States Government has tried to apply lipstick to a pig [una expresión británica similar a la española de ‘vestir la mona de seda…’], but it has not convinced the judges. His case is offensive to democratic principles. As a family, we breathe a sigh of relief, but we still wonder how long all of this will last,” he said.
The judges have set a hearing for May 24 to address any doubts of the parties and even consider the current situation of provisional detention to which Assange is subject. His wife has already warned on several occasions of the prisoner’s deteriorating state of health.
The prisoner’s legal team has fought in recent months so that their client had a last opportunity to appeal his surrender to the United States before British justice. The decision to give the green light to the extradition was adopted in 2022 by the then British Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, once the Supreme Court approved the guarantees offered by Washington regarding the safety of the prisoner, and the measures that were taken. they would adopt to prevent him from ending his own life.
However, judges Sharp and Johnson decided to validate three of the arguments put forward by the publisher’s lawyers to prevent its delivery to the US authorities. On March 26, the court demanded additional guarantees from Washington that, when the time came to be tried in that country, Assange could use the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of the press, in his defense; He would not reduce his rights because he was not a US citizen, nor would he ultimately impose the death penalty on the defendant.
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The court has considered the guarantee offered by the United States that the death penalty is ruled out sufficient. The Prosecutor’s Office of that country, dependent on the Executive, does not demand it, so the judges could not impose it unilaterally.
The key to the appeal now allowed, for which a hearing date has not yet been set, will revolve around two intertwined arguments: whether Assange runs the risk of being discriminated against due to his nationality, and whether that nationality (Australian) could end up being the obstacle that prevents him from basing his defense on the First Amendment.
The US Government accuses the prisoner of 17 crimes against the Espionage Act and one for computer interference. The Australian editor would face 175 years in prison for the leak of more than 250,000 classified documents from the US State Department in November 2010. Morning Express was one of the media that participated in that concerted effort to publish these papers.
The current Australian Government and its Parliament have requested the release of Assange, a citizen of that country. The legislative chamber approved a resolution with the same request in February, with the conservative opposition voting against. The Prime Minister, the Labor Party Anthony Albanese, supported the request with his vote, and has conveyed to Washington the desire of his Government that the extradition request be abandoned and the co-founder of Wikileaks be allowed to return.
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