LONDON (AP) – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out on Monday whether he can be extradited from the UK to the U.S. to face espionage charges for publishing secret American military documents.
District judge Vanessa Baraitser is due to deliver her decision to the Old Bailey court in London at 10 am Monday. If she meets the request, Britain’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, will make the final decision.
The side that loses should appeal, which could lead to more years of legal disputes.
However, there is a possibility that outside forces could take action and instantly end the decade-long saga.
Stella Moris, Assange’s partner and mother of her two children, appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump via Twitter to grant Assange a pardon before leaving office on January 20.
And even if Trump doesn’t, there is speculation that his successor, Joe Biden, may take a more lenient approach to Assange’s extradition process.
US prosecutors have indicted Assange, 49, on 17 counts of spying and one charge of computer misuse, which carries a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
Lawyers acting on behalf of the United States government said in their closing arguments after the four-week hearing in the fall that Assange’s defense team raised questions that were neither relevant nor admissible.
“Consistently, the defense asks this court to make conclusions, or to act in accordance with the petition, that the United States of America is guilty of torture, war crimes, murder, violations of diplomatic and international law and that the United States of America is ‘a lawless state’, ”they said. “These claims are not only unjustified in these procedures, but they should never have been made.”
Assange’s defense team argued that he is entitled to First Amendment protections for publishing leaked documents that exposed US military irregularities in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the US extradition request was politically motivated.
In their final written arguments, Assange’s legal team accused the United States of an “extraordinary, unprecedented and politicized” process that constitutes “a flagrant denial of its right to freedom of expression and poses a fundamental threat to press freedom throughout the world. “
Defense lawyers also said Assange was suffering from several mental health problems, including suicidal tendencies, which could be exacerbated if he were placed in harsh conditions in prison in the United States.
They said his mental health deteriorated while he was staying at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for years and that he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Assange escaped bail in 2012 when he applied for asylum at the embassy, where he remained for seven years before being evicted and arrested. He has been detained in Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.
His legal team argued that Assange, if extradited, would likely face solitary confinement that would put him at high risk for suicide. They said that if he were later convicted, he would probably be sent to Colorado’s notorious ADX Supermax prison, which is also inhabited by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Mexican drug dealer Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Attorneys for the United States government have argued that Assange’s mental state “is evidently not so severe as to prevent extradition.”
Assange drew support from leading figures, including Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and actress Pamela Anderson.
Daniel Ellsberg, the famous US whistleblower, also spoke out in support, saying they had “very similar political views”.
The 89-year-old man, widely credited with helping to end the Vietnam War by leaking Pentagon documents in 1971, said the American public “urgently needed to know what was being done routinely on his behalf, and there was no another way for them to learn other than by unauthorized disclosure. ”
There are clear echoes between Assange and Ellsberg, who leaked more than 7,000 pages of classified documents to the press, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Ellsberg was later brought to trial on 12 charges in connection with violations of the Espionage Law, which were punishable by up to 115 years in prison. The charges were dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct against him.
Assange and his legal team hope that events in the United States will end his ordeal if the judge accepts the United States’ extradition request.