{"id":176553,"date":"2021-01-11T12:01:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T12:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=176553"},"modified":"2021-01-08T05:40:19","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T05:40:19","slug":"uk-judge-blocks-us-request-to-extradite-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/01\/uk-judge-blocks-us-request-to-extradite-assange\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Judge Blocks US Request to Extradite Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UK judge says WikiLeaks founder should not be extradited to face espionage charges because he is at risk of suicide.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Sun<\/p><\/div>\n

4 Jan 2021 – <\/em>A British judge has ruled that Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges, saying that such a move would be \u201coppressive\u201d because of the WikiLeaks founder\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

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District Judge Vanessa Baraitser delivered the decision against the US authorities\u2019 request on Monday, at the Old Bailey court in London.<\/p>\n

Assange, 49, appeared in court wearing a navy suit and a mask, and showed little emotion at the ruling, simply wiping his brow.<\/p>\n

His fiancee Stella Moris, with whom he has two sons, burst into tears and was embraced by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stella Morris (C), partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Old Bailey court in central London, Britain, January 4 2021 [Facundo Arrizabalaga\/EPA-EFE]<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Baraitser said he was \u201ca depressed and sometimes despairing man\u201d who had the \u201cintellect and determination\u201d to circumvent any suicide prevention measures taken by prison authorities.If imprisoned in the US, Australian-born Assange \u201cfaces the bleak prospect of severely restrictive detention conditions designed to remove physical contact and reduce social interaction and contact with the outside world to a bare minimum\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe faces these prospects as someone with a diagnosis of clinical depression and persistent thoughts of suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am satisfied that the risk that Mr Assange will commit suicide is a substantial one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US government, which is attempting to prosecute Assange, reacted quickly as expected, saying it would appeal the decision.<\/p>\n

Assange\u2019s lawyers said they would ask for his release from Belmarsh, a maximum-security London prison where he has been held for almost two years, at a bail hearing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In court, they argued that the case was political and an assault on journalism and freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

Baraitser rejected that, however, saying there was insufficient evidence that prosecutors had been pressured by Donald Trump\u2019s team and there was little evidence of hostility from the US president towards him.<\/p>\n

She said there was no evidence that Assange would not get a fair trial in the US nor that prosecutors were seeking to punish him, and said his actions had gone beyond investigative journalism.<\/p>\n

Cautious relief among press freedom advocates<\/h2>\n

In the run-up to Monday\u2019s decision, Assange had enjoyed a swell of support from press freedom advocates, who have been calling on US President Donald Trump to pardon him.<\/p>\n

After the ruling, Assange\u2019s supporters who had gathered since the early morning to rally outside the court celebrated, cheering and shouting \u201cFree Assange!\u201d<\/p>\n

While rights groups and journalists globally welcomed Baraitser\u2019s decision, they issued some caution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am relieved the judge just ruled against extradition, however, I am very unhappy about how she stuck to all the major arguments put forward by the US to characterise Assange\u2019s work as going beyond free speech and journalism,\u201d investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi told Al Jazeera following the ruling.<\/p>\n

Maurizi works for the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano and has worked on all of WikiLeaks\u2019s secret documents, included the 2010 documents for which Assange has been charged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am also very concerned that Assange will remain in prison because it\u2019s very likely the US will appeal: he is at serious risk physically and mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US-based Freedom of the Press Foundation tweeted: \u201cThe extradition request was not decided on press freedom grounds; rather, the judge essentially ruled the US prison system was too repressive to extradite. However, the result will protect journalists everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, 49-year-old Assange is expected to remain in jail in the UK, where his physical and mental health have declined.<\/p>\n

The case could eventually lead to the United Kingdom\u2019s Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Mexico\u2019s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he was ready to offer political asylum to the Wikileaks publisher and supported the British court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cAssange is a journalist and deserves a chance, I am in favor of pardoning him,\u201d Lopez Obrador told his regular news conference on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll give him protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.<\/p>\n

Assange\u2019s lawyers argue that the case is politically motivated, and that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing leaked documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Assange and WikiLeaks shot to fame in April 2010, after the website released a 39-minute video of a US military Apache helicopter firing over and killing more than a dozen Iraqis, including two Reuters journalists.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Neave Barker, reporting from outside the Old Bailey, said Monday\u2019s decision would come \u201cas a blow\u201d to the prosecution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are talking potentially about many many more months, or many more years, of legal wrangling to go when it comes to deciding Julian Assange\u2019s future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is seen very much as a thorn in the side to many governments, not just the US government, and as a man who has jeopardised state secrets, undermined state security and the safety of undercover agents working in very difficult situations in challenging parts of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 Jan 2021 – A British judge has ruled that Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges, saying that such a move would be \u201coppressive\u201d because of the WikiLeaks founder\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":176554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[229,918,910,942,487,378,651,234,911,454,572,639,292,70,126,921,113],"class_list":["post-176553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight","tag-activism","tag-assange","tag-big-brother","tag-ecuador","tag-human-rights","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-media","tag-surveillance","tag-sweden","tag-torture","tag-uk","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-whistleblowing","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}