The News
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was handed a temporary legal reprieve Tuesday after British judges ruled that the United States must provide assurances about his treatment before he can be extradited on espionage charges, including that he will not face the death penalty.
The U.K. High Court gave Washington until April 16 to give “satisfactory assurances” that Assange, an Australian citizen, would receive the same First Amendment freedom of speech protections as a U.S. citizen during his trial, and that he cannot be handed the death penalty if found guilty. Assange will be able to appeal his extradition if these assurances are not met.
Assange, 52, is accused of violating the U.S. Espionage Act after releasing tens of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011, including damning videos about U.S. military conduct in the Middle East.
Fearing extradition, in 2012 he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and stayed there until he was expelled in 2019. He has remained in a high-security prison in the U.K. ever since.
Speaking outside the High Court in London, his wife Stella Assange said he was a “political prisoner” and called on the U.S. to drop the case against him. “If you expose the interests that are driving war, they will come after you, they will put you in prison, and they will try to kill you,” she said.
SIGNALS
Plea bargain could be one way to end Assange’s legal mess
Assange still has several legal options that could delay his transfer to the U.S. further, including a plea bargain. “A plea bargain may begin to look like a reasonable outcome for everyone concerned” given that these legal proceedings would likely take months — if not years — to process, Holly Cullen, a professor of law at the University of Western Australia wrote for The Conversation. This is because even if the U.K’s Supreme Court upholds the extradition, meaning Assange has exhausted all his legal options in the country, he can still appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which the U.K. still follows.
His lawyers would likely apply for interim measures to prevent Assange’s extradition until the European court has made a decision, Cullen said. While interim measures are usually only granted in extreme cases, such as to avoid inhumane treatment, Assange’s lawyers have a strong case to further delay proceedings given that UN officials have already said that the U.S. prison conditions Assange would face could amount to torture.
US case against Assange challenges principles over freedom of the press
The charges against Assange over revealing classified information have undermined the country’s principles of democracy and free speech, Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, wrote for NBC News in 2021. The U.S. Justice Department alleges that its case against Assange does not violate press freedom because Assange is not a journalist and WikiLeaks is not a media organization, but this argument “misses the point” because Assange engaged in normal journalistic duties in obtaining and publishing the classified documents, Jaffer argued. No journalist or news outlet can report responsibly on issues such as war, foreign relations or national security without sometimes disclosing classified information, he wrote, and this is necessary if journalists “are to serve as a meaningful check on government power.”
However, the Washington Post editorial board has argued that Assange is no “free-press hero:” citing allegations that he obtained the documents unethically, such as by helping former U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning to hack into a classified computer system,, and that WikiLeaks just “dumped” material on its site rather than vetting it for accuracy.
Australia has grown more opposed to the US case
The Australian government has become more vocally opposed to the prolonged detainment and trial of its famous citizen, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in February denouncing the legal pursuit by U.S. and U.K authorities, saying the whole country shared the view that “enough is enough.” Assange’s lawyers and family have said that the activist’s years-long refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy and detainment in British prison has taken a serious toll on his health, with supporters saying that his prolonged detention amounts to inhumane treatment. Australia’s parliament in February passed a resolution calling for the U.S. and U.K. authorities to end Assange’s prosecution. “This thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely,” Albanese said.