WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, the British High Court said on Friday, as it overturned an earlier judgement, sparking condemnation from press freedom advocates.
The decision deals a major blow to Assange’s efforts to prevent his extradition to the US to face espionage charges, although his lawyers announced that they would seek to appeal.
Two of the UK’s most senior judges found that a then-district judge based her decision earlier this year on the risk of Assange being held in highly restrictive US prison conditions.
Photo: Reuters
However in the High Court ruling, the judges sided with the US authorities after a package of assurances were put forward that Assange would not face those strictest measures unless he committed an act in the future that required them.
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Ian Burnett said: “That risk is in our judgement excluded by the assurances which are offered. It follows that we are satisfied that, if the assurances had been before the judge, she would have answered the relevant question differently.”
“That conclusion is sufficient to determine this appeal in the USA’s favor,” Burnett said.
The High Court judges ordered that the case be remitted to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court with a direction that a district judge send it to the British secretaries of state, who would decide whether Assange should be extradited.
Assange’s fiancee, Stella Moris, described the new ruling as “dangerous and misguided,” and a “grave miscarriage of justice.”
“Today is International Human Rights Day, what a shame. How cynical to have this decision on this day,” she said, speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
The case against the 49-year-old relates to WikiLeaks’s publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, in 2010 and 2011.
Alarm at the ruling was expressed by advocates of press freedom, with Amnesty International describing the ruling as a “travesty of justice.”
Amnesty International Europe director Nils Muiznieks said: “By allowing this appeal, the High Court has chosen to accept the deeply flawed diplomatic assurances given by the US that Assange would not be held in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison.”
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