- Assange faces US extradition hearing
- Health, press freedom concerns highlighted
- Global debate over prosecution intensifies
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the High Court of London will hold two days of hearings to determine whether Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, may appeal a request for extradition to the United States to stand prosecution on espionage charges.
The charges in question carry maximum sentences of 175 years. However, according to Stella, Assange’s wife, the true peril is that he might be executed by mistake.
His physical and mental health are deteriorating,” Stella Assange told reporters recently. “Every day he remains incarcerated, his life is in danger; if extradited, he will perish.”
His legal team intends to file an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights if Wednesday’s verdict is unfavourable to Assange. However, a favourable judgement there might not be possible in time to prevent the extradition.
Their attorneys announced on Tuesday that Assange would be absent from court on account of illness.
A British judge concurred in January 2021, determining that he was likely to commit suicide in near-total isolation. Therefore, he should not be extradited to the United States.
“Based on my assessment, extraditing Mr. Assange to the United States of America would be oppressive due to his mental state,” stated Judge Vanessa Baraitser.
The United States, however, has maintained its pressure for his extradition.
A district court in East Virginia has levied seventeen espionage accusations against Julian Assange in connection with the release of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified US military documents on his website, WikiLeaks, in 2010.
US prosecutors say Assange and Chelsea Manning hacked Pentagon servers to steal the documents.
Documents that were extensively covered by Western media exposed what numerous individuals consider to be proof of war crimes. These crimes were committed by United States forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. They show a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed eleven people, including two Reuters journalists.
“The most significant case in the world concerning press freedom”
WikiLeaks has become a storehouse for government and business whistleblowers’ documents since 2010.
Edward Snowden, an independent contractor affiliated with the United States National Security Agency, disclosed to WikiLeaks in 2013. He revealed that the NSA had covertly filtered private correspondence by installing digital stovepipes on the servers of email providers.
Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian offshore law firm, released millions of documents three years later, disclosing that public officials and corporations had established offshore entities to evade taxes and conceal funds with potential illicit uses.
Assange Case: A Press Freedom Battleground
On X, formerly Twitter, Snowden labelled Assange’s case “the most crucial press freedom case in the world,” and lawyers concur.
Jameel Jaffer, a law and journalism professor at Columbia University, told, “This is the first instance in which the United States government has prosecuted a publisher under the Espionage Act that was passed in 1917.”
“Assange’s indictment, if successfully prosecuted, would criminalise a substantial portion of investigative journalism that is vital to democracy,” Jaffer stated. This would include activities such as cultivating sources and maintaining confidential communications with them. It also involves soliciting information from them, safeguarding their identities from disclosure, and publishing classified data.
“I am at a loss as to why the Biden administration would wish for this perilous and myopic prosecution to endure as its lasting imprint.” It is imperative that the Justice Department dismiss the Espionage Act allegations, which were never warranted to be filed.”
Although the disclosure occurred in 2010, the Obama administration did not prosecute Assange.
Eight years later, the Trump administration began prosecution, and US President Joe Biden appears to be intensifying it.
According to Stella Assange, her spouse functioned as a publisher when he disseminated publicly beneficial information. Historically, publishers have not faced legal prosecution for carrying out their official duties.
Stella Assange stated, “Julian has been indicted for receiving, possessing, and disseminating information to the public regarding evidence of war crimes committed by the United States government.” “It is never a crime to report a crime.”
However, according to US prosecutors, he was not simply the recipient of information.
His indictment states, “Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defence computers.” Prosecutors stated that aiding in the hacking of the Pentagon’s infrastructure constituted a crime of commission that endangered US intelligence sources and “could be used against the United States.”
“He’s endured sufficient suffering”
Friends and family of Julian Assange have contended that apart from safeguarding fundamental press freedoms, his release is warranted. They argue this on humanitarian considerations.
Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London for a period of seven years. He has been incarcerated in the high-security Belmarsh Prison in London since 2019.
Allies of Julian Assange hold the view that his eleven years of incarceration sufficiently constitute punishment.
It was termed “punishment through process” by WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson.
Recently, Hrafnsson told reporters, “It is obviously a deliberate attempt to wear him down in order to punish him for the length of time.”
Julian and Stella Assange’s two sons born in the Ecuadorean embassy have never met their father.
Australia Advocates for Assange’s Release
The Australian government, which is Assange’s country of origin, has also requested that the arduous legal proceedings be concluded expeditiously.
The resolution, approved by the federal parliament in Canberra on February 14, affirmed that Julian Assange’s 2010 leak had “unveiled shocking evidence of misconduct by the United States” and emphasised “the critical nature of the United Kingdom and the United States concluding this matter in order to facilitate Mr. Assange’s repatriation to his family in Australia.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia noted that a variety of political forces supported the resolution and that their assessments of the merits of Julian Assange’s actions “would have varied perspectives.”
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Nevertheless, “they have reached the consensus… that enough is enough and this should be resolved” (he continued).
Donald Rothwell, an Australian National University professor of international law, stated that Australia “has endeavoured to advance that position through appropriate diplomatic representations.” “However, its ability to do so is constrained by the fact that the United Kingdom and the United States hold the legal and political authority over the matter.”
The United States is also pursuing Snowden under the Espionage Act of 1917. However, “he is effectively shielded from US prosecution by virtue of his current Russian citizenship and residence in Russia, as Russia refuses to extradite him,” according to Rothwell.
