LONDON – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be legally extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage due to concerns about his fragile mental health and the risk of suicide, a British court ruled on Monday.
Lawyers who act on behalf of the United States government have said they will appeal the decision.
District judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled in London’s Old Bailey court in a case that opposes national security to freedom of expression. A crowd of reporters gathered outside while a small group of supporters shouted “Free Julian Assange”.
“I think Mr. Assange’s mental condition is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” said the judge in her decision.
If extradited, Assange, 49, would face a maximum of 175 years in prison if convicted on 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse.
Assange listened silently to the judge’s statement, wearing a blue suit and gray mask.
Assange’s defense team argued that the US action against him is political and therefore incompatible with the US-UK extradition treaty. The judge said it “provided no basis for preventing” his extradition.
But Assange’s team argued that he could not be extradited for health reasons and Baraitser accepted that Assange suffers from clinical depression and struggled to control thoughts of suicide or self-harm. The judge agreed to this argument and ordered his dismissal.
The trial cites a psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Kopelman, who evaluated Assange.
“I am as confident as a psychiatrist can be that if extradition to the United States becomes imminent, Mr. Assange will find a form of suicide,” said Kopelman.
Assange said he was acting as a journalist, but Baraitser said the activity of WikiLeaks founder in receiving hundreds of thousands of confidential files from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning went beyond investigative journalism.
The judge rejected a series of protests by the Assange team about extradition, including the allegation that the jury in any US lawsuit will be composed of government officials and therefore biased, and that he will not be protected under the US Constitution. USA.
“I considered and rejected any suggestion that, as a foreign citizen, Assange would not receive the protections of the United States Constitution,” she said.
Prosecutors in the U.S. say Assange conspired with Manning to break into a Pentagon computer and release hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and secret military files.
Among the archives published in 2010 by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad, which killed a dozen people.
Assange’s supporters say the leaked documents expose U.S. military irregularities.
The Australian has been in a British prison since he was expelled from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in April 2019. He received asylum from Ecuador in 2012 for fear of possible extradition to the United States. He also sought to prevent extradition to Sweden because of sex offenses allegations, which were subsequently withdrawn in 2015.
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Before the decision, Assange’s partner, Stella Moris, with whom he had two children while living at the embassy, he told NBC News that he was “an innocent man who has been in prison for almost two years for publishing the truth about state crimes, about war crimes, about human rights abuses. This is a stain on democracy. “
Asking President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden to forgive him, she said it would save Assange’s life, save her family’s life and “also save the First Amendment.”
“Democracy itself is at stake in this case, because it is a frontal attack on our right to know, on the accountability of governments,” said Moris, who was a member of Assange’s legal team.
Agnes Callamard, director of Global Freedom of Expression at Columbia University, an initiative that works to protect the free flow of information, said that “Assange’s leaks and allegations are protected by the right to freedom of expression” and that “reporting illegal killings” is protected by law. “
Moris also said that she was “extremely concerned” because there was an outbreak of Covid-19 on her wing. She added that her children spoke to Assange daily, “but they should be with their father. They should have their father’s comfort in his home. And they can’t.”
Assange has remained in prison since the US extradition hearings began in February. They were postponed until September due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Reuters contributed to this report.
