London – A British judge on Monday rejected the United States’ request to extradite the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange to face espionage charges, saying he would be “oppressive” because of his mental health. District judge Vanessa Baraitser said Assange was prone to commit suicide if sent to the USA
The US government has said it will appeal the decision.
CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reported from outside London’s Old Bailey criminal court that the verdict came as a surprise and drew wide applause from a group of Assange supporters.
US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and an accusation of computer misuse in publishing military and diplomatic documents leaked by WikiLeaks a decade ago. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
The 49-year-old Australian’s lawyers argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections for freedom of expression by publishing leaked documents that exposed US military irregularities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although she blocked Assange’s extradition, the judge rejected his legal team’s claim to be protected by free speech.
Palmer reported that Assange also did not leave court as a free man on Monday, despite the verdict. He was sent back to custody because the US legal team said he would immediately appeal the judge’s decision.
At the end of the presentations, Assange’s legal team accused the United States of an “extraordinary, unprecedented and politicized” process that sought to “criminalize the obtaining and publication of information related to ‘national security'”.
The defense argued that extradition threatened Assange’s human rights because he risks “a grossly disproportionate sentence” and detention in “draconian and inhumane conditions” that would exacerbate his severe depression and other mental health problems.
US government lawyers deny that Assange is being prosecuted just for publishing the leaked documents, saying the case “is largely based on his illegal involvement” in the theft of diplomatic cables and military files by a US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
The judge’s decision is an important moment in the legal limbo of Assange’s decade in Britain – but not the final chapter, as made clear by the impending US appeal.
Assange’s partner, Stella Moris, who had two children with him while living at the embassy, appealed to President Donald Trump to forgive Assange before Trump stepped down on January 20.
Assange’s charge was condemned by journalists and human rights groups, who say it undermines freedom of expression around the world.
“The simple fact that this case came to court, let alone for so long, is a large-scale historic attack on freedom of expression,” said WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson. “This is a struggle that affects each person’s right to know and is being fought collectively.”
Assange’s legal problems started in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, who wanted to question him about charges of rape and sexual assault by two women. In 2012, to avoid being sent to Sweden, Assange sought refuge within the Embassy of Ecuador, where he was out of reach of British and Swedish authorities – but also effectively a prisoner, unable to leave the small diplomatic mission in the Knightsbridge area of London. .
The relationship between Assange and his hosts turned sour, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested him for jumping bail in 2012.
Sweden abandoned sex crime investigations in November 2019 because too much time had passed, but Assange remains in the maximum security prison in Belmarsh in London, taken to court in a prison van during his extradition hearing.