The story so far: On February 20, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange initiated what is purportedly his final legal effort to avoid extradition to the United States, with a London court taking up his case to assess whether to grant him an appeal to challenge the extradition order signed by the British government in June 2022. Mr. Assange was notably absent from the court proceedings due to illness, as conveyed by his legal representatives, who asserted that the WikiLeaks founder was being “prosecuted for engaging in the ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information.”
The 52-year-old has been entangled in an extradition saga for over a decade, spending seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and the last five years in a London prison. Since his 2010 arrest by the British police, he has resisted extradition to the U.S., where he faces 18 criminal charges for his role in obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to military and national defence and violating the Espionage Act. His lawyers say he could be sentenced to up to 175 years if convicted of spying, a claim disputed by the U.S.
Mr. Assange’s legal team contends that he won’t receive a fair trial in the U.S., asserting the case is politically motivated and that he will face a “flagrant denial of justice” if the U.K. facilitates his extradition. His wife, Stella, has underscored the threat to his life, drawing parallels with the recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison. “His health is declining, mentally and physically. His life is at risk every day he remains in prison, and extradition would result in his death,” she recently stated.
Australia, Assange’s home country, has also intensified pressure on the U.S. and the U.K. for an “amicable end to the prosecution” so that he can return to his family. “Regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely,” Australian PM Anthony Albanese said after the Australian Parliament passed a motion calling for Mr. Assange’s return.
Also Read | An unjust pursuit: On U.S.’ relentless pursuit of Julian Assange
What has Julian Assange done and why is he wanted?
Julian Assange first grabbed international attention in 2010 after he caused a storm in the U.S. with one of the biggest intelligence leaks in history. His website, WikiLeaks, published a huge cache of around half a million sensitive military files on the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a classified video from 2007 that showed an Apache helicopter firing indiscriminately, killing civilians and two Reuters war correspondents in Baghdad.
The leak was facilitated by ex-intelligence analyst Bradley Manning (now known as Chelsea) who accessed the U.S. Department of Defense database and uploaded the classified military files onto a WikiLeaks dropbox. The files exposing human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. forces were published by several international news organisations.
After the ‘War Logs’ shook the world, WikiLeaks uploaded nearly 2.5 lakh cables from the U.S. embassies, without any redactions. An Italian Minister termed the leak as the “9-11 of diplomacy”. The leak not only caused great embarrassment to Washington, which described the unauthorised release of information threat to national security, but WikiLeaks’ move was condemned by its media partners who acknowledged that the release of unredacted cables could put sources at risk.
In 2016, ahead of the presidential elections, the whistleblowing website published emails of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s aide John Podesta. The leaked communication hurt Ms. Clinton’s election campaign. Activists dubbed the leak as an intervention to “harm” her chances and claimed that WikiLeaks had obtained the information from Russian intelligence agency hackers. Later, it came to light that WikiLeaks had also sought to feed information to the Trump campaign to enhance the impact of the Clinton files. Mr. Assange, however, claimed that the group’s messages were part of its promotional efforts.
How has the extradition saga unfolded over the years?
In September 2010, Mr. Assange fled Sweden for Britain after an investigation was ordered into allegations of sex crimes against him made by two WikiLeaks volunteers. The U.K. police arrested him on a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in December that year. The WikiLeaks founder was granted bail as he denied charges, maintaining that the sex crimes case was a pretext to hand him over to the U.S. In subsequent months, Mr. Assange filed multiple pleas against extradition to Sweden to face rape charges. His case went up to the U.K. Supreme Court, but relief evaded him.
After his final challenge to appeal the extradition was rejected, Mr. Assange jumped bail and took refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in June 2012. He was offered political asylum a few months later. With British authorities ready to arrest him as soon as he left the premises, he remained there for seven years even though Swedish prosecutors subsequently dropped all investigations.
In the meantime, in the United States, Ms. Manning was convicted of espionage for disclosing unauthorised files to WikiLeaks though her sentence was later commuted by the Obama administration, and maintained that it would not pursue criminal charges against WikiLeaks or Mr. Assange.
The new Trump administration, however, held a different view.
Soon after Donald Trump took oath in 2017, Mr. Assange was charged with collaborating in a conspiracy with Ms. Manning to crack a password on a Defence Department network to publish classified documents and communications on WikiLeaks in a sealed indictment. The charges were unsealed in 2019. Mr. Assange was indicted on 17 additional charges related to the violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 by a U.S. court, taking the total to 18.
The Ecuadorian government, meanwhile, revoked his asylum status in April 2019 as pressure mounted. Dramatic scenes played outside the embassy as police dragged out Mr. Assange and arrested him for jumping bail. The following month, he was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaching his bail conditions.
With Mr. Assange in jail, the U.S. formally asked Britain to extradite him to put him on trial for 18 charges that included conspiracy to hack into Pentagon computers and releasing secret files, thereby violating espionage laws.
What is happening in the latest trial?
Mr. Assange completed his jail term in September 2019, but the U.K. trial and extradition saga has been going on for nearly five years. After much back and forth on extradition appeals, Britain’s then Home Secretary Priti Patel approved Mr. Assange’s extradition to the U.S. in June 2022 as London’s High Court turned down his request for an appeal.
The two-day hearing that began on Tuesday (February 20) is the final attempt by Mr. Assange’s legal team to reverse the extradition decision, which is why it has been dubbed his ‘last chance’. “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 U.K. – bringing Assange dangerously close to extradition,” the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders has said.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has also urged Britain to halt the possible extradition, saying that Mr. Assange would be at “risk of treatment amounting to torture if extradited. “The risk of being placed in prolonged solitary confinement, despite his precarious mental health status, and to receive a potentially disproportionate sentence raises questions as to whether Mr. Assange’s extradition to the United States would be compatible with the United Kingdom’s international human rights obligations…” the statement read.
What legal options are available to Assange?
There are two possible outcomes for Mr. Assange’s case at the moment. If the court accepts his appeal, his case will proceed to a full appeal. However, if the court denies his request, all judicial remedies will be exhausted and the British authorities will be able to extradite him to the United States. Mr. Assange could potentially face life imprisonment if found guilty in the U.S.
He does have the option to request intervention from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to stop his extradition, but it may be too late by the time the ECHR can act. An application to halt his extradition is already pending with the ECHR.
According to news agencies, the two-judge panel reviewing Mr. Assange’s case is expected to take several weeks to make a decision. As a result, the WikiLeaks founder will have to continue waiting despite concerns about his deteriorating health.
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