21 May 2024 :

May 20, 2024 - United Kingdom. Assange wins right to challenge US extradition
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange can bring a new appeal against extradition to the US, the High Court has ruled.
He was granted permission to appeal against the order that he be sent to the US to stand trial for leaking military secrets.
The decision means Mr Assange will be able to challenge US assurances over how his prospective trial would be conducted and whether his right to free speech would be infringed.
The 52-year-old’s lawyers hugged each other in court after the latest ruling in the legal saga.
They have argued that the case against him - relating to the release of highly classified documents almost 15 years ago about alleged US war crimes - is politically motivated.
The US argues that the Wikileaks files - which disclosed information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars - endangered lives.
In a short ruling on Monday morning, two senior judges granted him permission to appeal against an earlier order allowing his extradition to the US. They ruled that he needs to be given a full appeal in the UK.
Mr Assange has resisted extradition from the UK for more than a decade, after his Wikileaks website published the confidential US documents in 2010 and 2011.
Mr Assange, who is currently in Belmarsh Prison, will now have a number of months to prepare his appeal, which will concern whether or not the US courts will protect his right to free speech as an Australian citizen.
Hundreds of people had gathered outside the court ahead of the ruling, and supporters of Mr Assange cheered as news of the decision filtered through.
It means he will remain in the UK for now.
Had the court ruled in the US's favour, Mr Assange would have exhausted all legal avenues in the UK.
Earlier on Monday, his wife Stella Assange told the BBC that she would "fight on until Julian is free", whatever the judges ruled.
Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice after the decision, Ms Assange welcomed the ruling and branded it a “turning point”.
She called on the US to “abandon this shameful attack on journalists, on the press and the public that has been going on for 14 years.”
The US Department of Justice described the leak as "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States".
The leaked files suggested the US military had killed civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan.
US authorities say Mr Assange put lives at risk by failing to redact the names of intelligence operatives in the documents. They also argue that he is not being prosecuted in relation to any of the disclosures that he says exposes war crimes.
Mr Assange's legal team has argued that the case is a politically motivated form of "state retaliation".
"He exposed literally war crimes," Ms Assange told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday.
"This case is the revenge of that country against openness and accountability."
Then-home secretary Priti Patel signed Mr Assange's extradition order in 2022, but he returned to the High Court in February 2024 to ask for permission to appeal.
At a hearing in March, the US government was given additional time to make assurances that Mr Assange would not receive the death penalty in the US and on two other grounds:
that Mr Assange would be able to rely on the first amendment to the US constitution - which protects free speech.
that his Australian nationality would not count against him.
Last month, judges confirmed the US had provided assurances to the court.
Mr Assange and his legal team accept the assurance that he will not face the death penalty were he to be charged with other offences.
Earlier on Monday, James Lewis KC, representing the US government, said in written submissions to the court that there was “no question” that Mr Assange would be “entitled to the full panoply of due process trial rights” - including the first amendment defence – if extradited.
Separately, last month, US President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop Mr Assange's prosecution and return him to his native country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw44l170xdwo

19 April 2024 :

April 16, 2024 - USA. United States Provides Binding Assurances that Julian Assange Will Not Face the Death Penalty
On April 16, 2024, the Biden Administration provided assurances to the United Kingdom that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing extradition to the United States on espionage charges, would not face the death penalty. A hearing is now scheduled in London on May 20 to evaluate the assurances and decide whether Mr. Assange has any remaining legal recourse. A few weeks earlier, the High Court in London granted Mr. Assange a reprieve from extradition, agreeing to grant him an appeal if the United States was unable to provide assurances that it would not seek the death penalty by April 16. 
Although none of the 18 charges Mr. Assange is currently facing are capital, the possibility that he could be charged with a capital crime in the future means that his extradition would be unlawful. In the United Kingdom, extradition of prisoners to countries where they could face the death penalty is barred unless “adequate written assurance that the death penalty will not be imposed or, if imposed, will not be carried out,” according to the UK’s Home Office guidance on extraditions. In her 66-page judgement published on March 26, the president of the king’s bench division, Victoria Sharp, noted the need for explicit assurances regarding the intentions of U.S authorities, noting calls from U.S. elected officials to capitally charge Mr. Assange. The assurances provided now confirm that “a sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange,” assuring that he will not be “tried for a death-eligible offense.” 
U.S. authorities also agree that Mr. Assange, an Australian citizen, can “raise and seek” a defense under the First Amendment, but cautioned that “a decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. Courts.” The UK High Court had specifically requested assurances “that the applicant [Mr. Assange] is permitted to rely on the first amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same first amendment [free speech] protections as a United States citizen.”  
Stella Assange, Mr. Assange’s wife, issued a statement after the U.S. assurances were made public. “[T]he US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the first amendment if extradited,” she said. “The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future – his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism. The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late.”  
For years, Australia has called upon the United States to drop the charges against Mr. Assange. On April 10, during an official visit with the Japanese prime minister, President Biden responded to a question about the request, stating, “We’re considering it.” Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese told Sky News Australia the following day that, “I’m increasingly optimistic about an outcome, but one certainly has not been delivered yet. We’ll continue to argue the case at every opportunity that we have.” The Wall Street Journal had reported on March 20 that U.S. Justice Department was considering offering Mr. Assange a plea deal.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/united-states-provides-binding-assurances-to-the-united-kingdom-that-julian-assange-will-not-face-the-death-penalty-if-extradited

30 March 2024 :

March 26, 2024 - UNITED KINGDOM. UK court says Assange can’t be extradited on espionage charges until US rules out death penalty. 
A British court ruled Tuesday that Julian Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won’t get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site’s publication of classified American documents.
2 High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances within three weeks about what will happen to him. The ruling means the legal saga, which has dragged on for more than a decade, will continue — and Assange will remain inside London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has spent the last 5 years.
Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said the U.S. must guarantee that Assange, who is Australian, “is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed.”
The judges said that if the U.S. files new assurances, “we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.” The judges said a hearing will be held May 20 if the U.S. makes those submissions.
The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday.
Assange’s supporters say he is a journalist protected by the First Amendment who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan that was in the public interest.
Assange’s wife Stella Assange said the WikiLeaks founder “is being persecuted because he exposed the true cost of war in human lives.”
“The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case, which should never have been brought,” she said outside the High Court in London.
The ruling follows a two-day hearing in the High Court in February, where Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said American authorities were seeking to punish him for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale,” including torture and killings.
The U.S. government said Assange’s actions went beyond journalism by soliciting, stealing and indiscriminately publishing classified government documents that endangered many people, including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped U.S. forces.
The judges rejected six of Assange’s nine grounds of appeal, including the allegation that his prosecution is political. They said that while Assange “acted out of political conviction … it does not follow however that the request for his extradition is made on account of his political views.”
The judges also said Assange could not appeal based on allegations, made by his lawyers, that the CIA developed plans to kidnap or kill Assange during the years he spent holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, to prevent him from trying to flee.
The judges said “plainly, these are allegations of the utmost seriousness,” but concluded they had no bearing on the extradition request.
“Extradition would result in him being lawfully in the custody of the United States authorities, and the reasons (if they can be called that) for rendition or kidnap or assassination then fall away,” the ruling said.
They accepted 3 grounds or appeal: the threat to Assange’s freedom of speech, Assange’s claim that he faces disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen, and the risk he could receive the death penalty.
U.S. authorities have promised Assange would not receive capital punishment, but the judges said that “nothing in the existing assurance explicitly prevents the imposition of the death penalty.”
Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange’s lawyers, said that “even if we receive the assurances, we’re not confident we can rely on them.”
Assange, 52, an Australian computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on charges over Wikileaks’ publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of classified documents.
U.S. prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange faces 17 counts undee the Espionage Act and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, though American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower.
Assange’s wife and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles and confinement.
Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.
The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested and imprisoned him for breaching bail in 2012. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.
A U.K. district court judge rejected the U.S. extradition request in 2021 on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. Higher courts overturned that decision after getting assurances from the U.S. about his treatment. The British government signed an extradition order in June 2022.

https://apnews.com/article/britain-wikileaks-julian-assange-espionage-appeal-98c15267f0cdf63685bfb49766749a0a