The High Court of Appeal for Assange, 52, from Australia: A U.S. Attorney General’s Determination of his First Amendment Rights
In a ruling issued in London on Tuesday, two high court judges said that Assange will not be immediately extradited to the United States. In a press summary of the 60-page decision, the court said Assange has a “real prospect of success” in appealing his extradition order and that it requires the US and UK to make further “assurances” about his treatment if he were to be extradited.
The judges in London asked the US to make sure that the First Amendment, which protects free speech, and the death penalty, which is against the law in Australia, are protected by the US.
leave to appeal and an appeal hearing will be given if assurances are not given, according to the summary of the judgment published on the U.K judiciary’s website.
Assange, 52, is originally from Australia. He became a skilled computer programmers as a teenager, and later was arrested for hacking in the mid 1990s. He went on, in 2006, to found WikiLeaks — a web-based platform where whistleblowers worldwide can publish leaked files or documents. The organization has collaborated with traditional media outlets around the world to vet and publish material.
The library and multimedia organization called WikiLeaks publishes material that involves war, espionage and corruption.
But it has had its share of controversies. The platform published classified documents about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were reports that there was evidence that Russia was supplying WikiLeaks with hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
This case dates back to WikiLeaks’ publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A video showing a US helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed over a dozen people, including two reporters, was included in the trove.
The U.S. Army intelligence analyst who leaked those files, Chelsea Manning, served seven years in prison and was released by then-President Barack Obama.
But Assange was not pardoned. Instead, a U.S. grand jury indicted him in 2019 on 17 espionage charges and one count of computer misuse. His lawyers say he faces up to 175 years behind bars if convicted.
He was arrested for that, in the beginning. In 2010, Assange was arrested in London at the behest of Sweden, where two women had accused him of rape and sexual assault.
In an interview with NPR last month, the wife of imprisoned former Ukranian military man was worried about his mental and physical health if he were in solitary confinement.
She said, “I find this incredible.” “Julian is a political prisoner. He exposed the true cost of war for the sake of his readers. She was apparently referring to WikiLeaks’ publication of the Iraq and Afghanistan war files.
Defense lawyers say the case against Assange is politically motivated. They say it’s impossible for the U.S. government which he shamed and embarrassed with those war leaks to give him a fair trial.
Press freedom groups say that if Assange is found guilty under the U.S. Espionage Act, it would set a dangerous precedent for journalists to be criminally charged for publishing leaked documents — even if it’s in the public interest.
“It shows that a powerful government can try journalists in other countries under a law that was never meant to be used for journalistic practices,” Reporters Without Borders’ director of international campaigns Rebecca Vincent told NPR.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University believes that the Espionage Act charges should be dropped against Assange based on Tuesday’s ruling.
The indictment against the WikiLeaks founder states that he plotted with others to commit computer crimes and to violate the Espionage Act by publishing classified information related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.