Julian Assange makes last ditch effort to avoid extradition

(CNN) — Julian Assange’s legal team returned to the High Court in London on Tuesday in what could be his latest attempt to avoid extradition to the United States, where he faces life in prison if convicted of espionage.

After years of fighting, the 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder has only legal recourse left with British justice, and now only two judges from the United Kingdom’s High Court stand between him and a possible transfer to the other side. Atlantic.

The two-day hearing will examine whether an appeal against a 2022 extradition decision by former British home secretary Priti Patel should be allowed. If the court decides against Assange, he must be extradited within 28 days. However, his legal team is expected to ask the European Court of Human Rights to intervene with a Rule 39 order to stop the extradition.

Assange is wanted by the US Department of Justice on 18 criminal charges related to his organization’s dissemination of classified material and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011.

Each of those charges carries a potential sentence of 10 years, meaning Assange could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted.

Tuesday’s hearing is the latest stage in a convoluted process that has Assange jailed in Belmarsh, a high-security prison southeast of the British capital, years after his infamous ouster from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Assange created his website WikiLeaks in 2006 to challenge Western power structures and defend human rights.

But his self-described quest for “radical transparency and truth”, combined with a polarizing personality, transformed him into a notorious figure in later years, winning defenders and detractors alike.

How do we get here?

Assange’s fight began in 2010, when the then-little-known WikiLeaks began publishing massive amounts of classified documents related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Beginning in April, the website published a video of a 2007 shooting down of a US military helicopter, killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians. A few months later, he released more than 90,000 classified documents from the Afghanistan war, dating back to 2004.

In 2012, Assange requested political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in West London. He remained there for nearly seven years until the Metropolitan Police entered his asylum in 2019, in compliance with an extradition order from the US Department of Justice. British agents moved there after Ecuador withdrew its asylum and invited officials to enter the embassy. Assange’s alleged misconduct.

The United States wants to extradite Assange, where he faces an 18-count indictment handed down by the Eastern District of Virginia. It alleges that the WikiLeaks founder actively sought classified information, pressured former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain thousands of pages of classified material, and provided Assange with State Department diplomatic cables, reports of significant activities related to the Iraq War, and information related to detainees. In Guantanamo.

Two years later, a British judge rejected the US request, arguing that such a move would be “oppressive” because of his mental health. The US continued to insist on Assange’s extradition and managed to overturn a judge’s decision months later after making new guarantees about the treatment Assange would receive in the United States.

What does your legal team want now?

At Tuesday’s hearing, Assange’s team was expected to claim that he is being extradited for political reasons and that his surrender to the United States violates the European Convention on Human Rights.

British news agency PA Media reported that Assange did not attend the hearing because he is ill.

Fitzgerald told the court that Assange was being prosecuted for “engaging in ordinary journalistic practice in obtaining and publishing classified information, information which is true and clear and of significant public interest.”

Before the hearing, Assange’s wife Stella described her husband’s condition as “extremely serious”.

Speaking to reporters at a meeting organized by the Foreign Press Association on Thursday, he added: “It is the final hearing. If it does not go in favor of Julian, there is no possibility of an appeal in the Supreme Court or anywhere else. Jurisdiction.”

“I am very concerned about how he is doing. Physically, he has aged prematurely,” she told CNN. “He’s medicated. As you know, he had a microstroke in October 2021 and has all kinds of health problems after spending five years in a three-by-two-meter cell. He’s in there more than 22 hours a day. He’s kept in isolation. Even if it moves from one side of the cell to the other, it can’t do much.

He stressed his concern for Assange’s well-being and said he feared that if he was extradited, he might take his own life. “His health is deteriorating mentally and physically. Every day he spends in prison his life is in danger. If he is extradited, he will die.”

Why is his extradition controversial?

Assange supporters and human rights groups have long expressed concern about the US indictment, saying it could have a radical impact on journalism if the extradition order is allowed to go ahead.

Julia said, “The risk to editors and investigative journalists around the world is balanced. If Julian Assange is extradited to the United States and prosecuted there, media freedom around the world will also be put to the test.” Hall, Amnesty International’s expert on counter-terrorism and criminal justice in Europe, said in a statement.

Rebecca Vincent, Director of International Campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, commented that their case “has dire implications for journalism and press freedom.”

“Not surprising, since it would be the first publisher to be tried under United States espionage laws, which lack public interest protections,” Vincent said during a press conference last Thursday. “This means that this precedent could apply to anyone else publishing stories based on classified documents, so it could affect any journalist – any mainstream media outlet – anywhere in the world.”

Nick Vamos, head of corporate crime at law firm Peters & Peters and former head of extradition at the UK Crown Prosecution Service, told CNN it was “unlikely” the court would make a decision immediately.

“It’s a two-day hearing and obviously reflects the number of issues that the defense intends to raise,” he explained. Vamos added that the judges “will be aware that a lot of people are paying attention” to Assange’s case and will take some time to consider the arguments presented.