US granted permission to appeal UK court’s Assange extradition decision

The us government has been granted permission to appeal a British judge’s decision that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can’t be sent to the United States to face espionage charges.The judicial office said Wednesday that the appeal had been granted and therefore the case would be listed for a supreme court hearing.

No date has been set.

In January, a judge refused an American request to send Assange to the US to face spying charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret military documents a decade ago.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied extradition on health grounds, saying Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions.

The judge ordered that Assange must remain in prison during any potential US appeal, ruling that the Australian “has an incentive to abscond” if he were freed.

Assange, 50, has been in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle.

Assange spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy, where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual abuse .

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because such a lot time had elapsed.

US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

The prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped United States Army analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published. Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“He won his case in January, why is he even in prison?” she asked.the Biden administration to try to to the proper thing.

“This appeal was taken two days before the Trump administration left office, and if the Biden administration is serious about respecting the rule of law, the primary Amendment and defending global press freedom, the sole thing it can do is drop this case.”

Moris said she spoke to Assange about the choice , and described his situation as “endless purgatory”. six months and that we haven’t had any news,” she said.

“But at an equivalent time, it doesn’t end here then we’ve to organize for we do not skills long this may continue for, and the way long he are going to be imprisoned for therein terrible place.