n Julian Assange’s lawyers began their final UK legal challenge Tuesday to stop the WikiLeaks founder from being sent to the United States to face spying charges, arguing that his actions had exposed serious criminal actions by US authorities that were “of obvious and important public interest”. Assange himself was not in court. Judge Victoria Sharp said he was granted permission to come from Belmarsh Prison but had chosen not to attend. Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said he was unwell.
The 52-year-old has been fighting extradition for more than a decade, including seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and the last five years in a high-security prison.
Dozens of supporters holding “Free Julian Assange” signs and chanting “there is only one decision – no extradition” held a noisy protest outside the High Court in London, where Assange’s attorneys will ask two High Court judges to grant a new appeal hearing, his last legal roll of the dice in Britain.
“He is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information, information that is both true and of obvious and important public interest,” Fitzgerald said in court.
In written submissions, the lawyer said that “Julian Assange and Wikileaks were responsible for the exposure of criminality on the part of the US government on an unprecedented scale.” Fitzgerald also said there is a “real risk he will suffer a flagrant denial of justice” if sent to the US. If the judges rule against Assange, he can ask the European Court of Human Rights to block his extradition — though supporters worry he could be put on a plane to the US before that happens. Supporters plan to demonstrate outside the neo-Gothic court building on both days and march to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office at the end of the hearing.
Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson could deliver a verdict at the end of the two-day hearing on Wednesday, but they’re more likely to take several weeks to consider their decision.
“This hearing marks the beginning of the end of the extradition case, as any grounds rejected by these judges cannot be further appealed in the UK – bringing Assange dangerously close to extradition,” the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said. Assange, an Australian citizen, has been indicted on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of classified US documents.
US prosecutors say he helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk. To his supporters, Assange is a secrecy-busting journalist who exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan and is entitled to First Amendment protections.