Key Takeaways:
- The U.S authorities want Julian Assange for publishing hundreds of thousands of classified war documents.
- In December, Assange’s got a step closer to extradition.
- On Monday, the U.K. High Court has granted Assange permission to appeal against the decision of his extradition.
On Monday, the U.K High Court said that Wikileaks Founder Julian Paul Assange had been granted permission to appeal against a decision that allows him to be extradited on espionage to the United States. The decision to extradite Assange has laid on his mental health. In January 2021, a magistrates’ court ruling found that he could not be deported as it would be “oppressive” because of his mental health.
However, in early December, the U.S Government won an appeal in London’s High Court which almost confirmed his extradition from Britain to the U.S only after assuring his treatment by the US government. They also had to pledge that Assange would not be a subject of “special administrative measures” and that he could not be held at maximum-security prison neither before nor after trial.
Assange is a wanted criminal of the U.S authorities for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables related to the wars in Iran and Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011. The authorities have accused him of 18 charges and say that his actions have put several lives in danger. He is supposed to be imprisoned for 175 years.
On Monday, Assange’s permission to directly appeal December’s ruling was denied by Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett and Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde. So it is now on the UK’s Supreme Court whether to grant Assange’s appeal. The only argument of Assange’s team they acknowledged was that the Supreme Court never thought higher courts could take up assurances made by a state requesting extradition when the assurances were not put before lower courts earlier in the legal proceedings.
Stella Morris, Assange’s fiancee, has hailed the High Court ruling as “precisely what we wanted to happen.”
