In Surprise Ruling, UK Judge Bars Assange Extradition to US

A British judge has rejected the United States' request to have jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sent to Virginia to face espionage charges for revealing the killing of civilians and journalists in Iraq by American forces.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled extradition would be “oppressive” because of Assange's mental health and he was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions, the Associated Press said.

He has been held in the notorious Belmarsh prison for some 19 months amid reports his health deteriorated and his lawyers often kept from seeing him.

Baraitser said Assange was “a depressed and sometimes despairing man” who had the “intellect and determination” to circumvent any suicide prevention measures taken.

The judge during the hearing routinely dismissed arguments by his lawyers that sending him to the US would breach a prohibition on extradition for political offenses.

She said while she had no reason to doubt “the usual constitutional and procedural protections” would be applied to a trial he might face in the US, but the evidence of medical experts outweighed that, The Guardian reported.

“The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man who is genuinely depressed about his future,” said Baraitser who, however, earlier said she couldn’t move to improve the conditions in Belmarsh.

The US government said it would appeal the decision as his lawyers planned to ask for his release on Wednesday 6 January. His supporters fearing he would contract COVID-19 or die in prison otherwise.

US prosecutors indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked military and diplomatic documents a decade ago, charges that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers for the 49-year-old Australian argued he was acting as a journalist and some journalist groups rallied around him, fearing his case would open the way to others being charged for using classified documents to report wrongdoing.

Assange’s lawyers said he was entitled to First Amendment safeguards of freedom of speech for publishing leaked documents that exposed U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan but Baraitser said he wasn't due that protection.

She said using classified documents even to reveal the killings would “amount to offenses in this jurisdiction that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech,” likely leaving the door open for journalists to be targeted.

QUESTION OF HEALTH

The countervailing argument which led to the ruling, she said, is that Assange suffers from moderate to severe clinical depression that would be worsened by the isolation he would continue to face in a US prison as he does now.

His defense team during a three-week hearing that broke off in the fall of 2019 said extradition threatened his legal rights because he risks “a grossly disproportionate sentence” and detention in “Draconian and inhumane conditions” that would worsen his mental health.

Lawyers for the US said he wasn’t being prosecuted only for publishing leaked documents but that the charges also stem from “his unlawful involvement” in the theft of the diplomatic cables and military files by then- US Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

“The mere fact that this case has made it to court, let alone gone on this long, is an historic, large-scale attack on freedom of speech,” said WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson. “This is a fight that affects each and every person’s right to know and is being fought collectively."

Assange denied plotting with Manning to crack an encrypted password on US computers and said no one’s safety was compromised, his lawyers having argued WikiLeaks revealed evidence of war crimes and human rights abuses.

The founder of the legal charity Reprieve, Clive Stafford-Smith, said “grave violations of law” such as the use of US drones for strikes in Pakistan were revealed with the help of documents published by WikiLeaks, the British paper said.

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War, had also defended Assange, saying he had acted in the public interest, and warned he would not get a fair trial in the US.

Assange has been in custody in Britain since April 2019, when he was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had stayed seven years after being given asylum that Ecuador ended.

He had gone there to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that was later dropped.