A final decision on whether to grant the extradition will be made by the UK secretary of state, Priti Patel and while he does have the advantage that he is white and not a Muslim, he is unlikely to get any sanctuary. The Brits have spent a fortune on Assange over the last decade and will be pleased to off-load him to the Americans.
The US wants to put Assange on trial for conspiracy to hack and computer misuse. He also faces a number of charges under the controversial Espionage Act. In all, he faces 18 counts connected with “obtaining and disclosing defence and national security material” through the WikiLeaks website, primarily in 2009 and 2010 but also “to some extent since”, per a court summary.
Defenders of the polarising figure argue he’s being persecuted for telling truth to power and that his extradition would have a chilling effect on journalism, although Assange is not a journalist. He obtained information from former US Army soldier and whistleblower Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, who disclosed hundreds of thousands of classified or sensitive military and diplomatic documents that Assange then published via WikiLeaks. Once he was made famous by the leaks Assange abandoned Manning who went to jail.
In a summary of the judgment issued today, the UK High Court said it has accepted a package of assurances from the US government related to the previous district judge’s concerns that Assange is a suicide risk.
The Court said four assurances have been offered, adding that is “satisfied” the assurances exclude the possibility of Assange being subject to “special administrative measures” — or held at a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, USA (either pretrial or after any conviction) for the acts he is currently accused of committing.
The US has also agreed to consent to an application by Assange to be transferred to Australia to serve his sentence if he is convicted; and agreed that while he is in custody in the US he will receive “appropriate clinical and psychological treatment as recommended by a qualified treating clinician at the prison where he is held”, per the Court summary.
Sky News has reported that Assange’s legal team intends to seek an appeal at the Supreme Court and has 14 days to file an application. Almost a decade ago the British computer hacker Gary
McKinnon was saved from extradition to the US to face charges of hacking into military computers after the then home secretary, Theresa May, denied the application on human rights grounds.
However, Assange, who holds an Australian passport, is not a British national and really tried the patience of the UK legal system when he avoided rape charges by jumping bail in 2012 and hiding in the Ecuador embassy. The rape charges were later dropped because of the statute of limitations because investigators were not allowed to interview him for so long. Had he gone to Sweden to face the music he would have been probably let off and the US would never have gotten its claws into him.
