Julian Assange may be extradited to the United States, where he is accused of spying for WikiLeaks. The British High Court ruled this, thus overturning the previous ruling in which District Judge Vanessa Paritzer said last January that Assange could not be extradited due to mental health concerns and the risk of suicide in prison. The Supreme Court’s decision comes after the US side presented a package of measures to address these concerns.
the The “risk” of Assange being subjected to extremely strict detention conditions was excluded from “the guarantees provided” by the United States. This is what Chief Justice of the British Supreme Court Lord Burnett said in announcing the decision today.
Washington gave assurances that Assange would not be subject to certain restrictions in high-security prisons either before or after trial, unless necessary. “We are satisfied with these assurances” the Supreme Court justices argue, also saying that if they had been brought to the district judge who refused to extradite in January “he would have answered the question differently.”
“This conclusion is sufficient to determine that this appeal is in favor of the United States‘, then concludes Lord Burnett’s sentencing against which Assange will always be able to appeal. He has been charged with 18 counts, 17 of which refer to the Espionage Act, and Assange risks a 175-year sentence. American lawyers have given assurances that the sentencing could take thousands of publications Top-secret documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq between four and six years.
the The WikiLeaks founder will be able to make his final appeal to the British High Court, which will have to choose whether or not to accept the case. The court usually accepts appeals of “general public interest” or constitutional importance. The whole process could take weeks, maybe months.
If the Supreme Court had rejected Assange’s appeal, the 50-year-old Australian would have exhausted the demands of the British judicial system. But his lawyers can try to suspend his extradition by appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.
Accused during the Trump administration of violating the Espionage Act, Assange This is the first case in which federal prosecutors have hit not only the source of classified material but also who published it.
Chelsea Manning, the former military services specialist who passed the information on to Assange, was in prison between 2010 and 2017 when Barack Obama commuted his sentence shortly before he left the White House, calling it “disproportionate.” In 2013. Manning returned to prison for about a year, between 2019 and 2020, for refusing to testify before the grand jury that later indicted Assange.
The Biden administration’s Justice Department had confirmed in a diplomatic note sent last February that Assange would not be “subject to special restrictive measures” or would be held in a maximum security prison. Furthermore, the US undertakes to “accept” a request that any sentence be served in Australia and to ensure “appropriate medical and psychological treatment” for the prisoner.
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