The High Court in London will begin a two-day hearing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s appeal against his extradition to the US. This judicial review may be the last in British courts for the 52-year-old Australian.
The hearing will begin at 10.30am local time and will be presided over by two judges – the head of the Queen’s Bench bench, Victoria Sharp, and Judge Adam Johnson. They will assess the verdict handed down in June 2023 by London High Court judge Jonathan Swift. He dismissed on all eight counts the appeal by Assange’s lawyers against the Australian’s extradition order from the UK to the US.
If the appeal is successful, Assange’s defense will have the opportunity to challenge in the British courts his extradition to the United States. Otherwise, they will be deprived of such a tool. One of the last possibilities to prevent the WikiLeaks founder from being transferred to the US in such a scenario could be an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
It is not yet clear whether Assange will attend the hearing in person or via video link from London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, where he has been held since 2019 after being removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. For more than four years, Washington has been pushing London to extradite him to the US, but Assange’s defense has made fresh attempts to prevent this.
In June 2022, the then UK Home Office chief Priti Patel decided to extradite Assange to the United States following a review of the case by both the Westminster Magistrates’ Court and the High Court in London. The kingdom’s Home Office indicated that the British courts had not reached the view that extraditing Assange would be repressive, unfair, or there would be an unlawful use of the judicial process. WikiLeaks has previously emphasized that the prosecution of the Australian has always been a political matter.
Assange is charged in the United States with offences related to the largest case of disclosure of classified information in American history. He faces 175 years in prison on the combined charges. In November 2023, leading Western publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times, Le Monde, El País, called on the United States government to drop the charges against Assange.
Stella Assange, the Australian’s wife, warned that the WikiLeaks founder faces death if he is extradited to the United States.
“This case will essentially determine whether he lives or dies,” she told the BBC broadcaster on Monday.
She previously revealed that Assange suffered a microstroke in October 2021 and his health continues to deteriorate. During court hearings in London in previous years, experts have expressed concerns about Assange’s psychological state, diagnosing him with clinical depression, which could be suicidal.
Stella Assange admitted that if the High Court does not agree with the arguments of the defense, “there will be no opportunity for further appeal in this jurisdiction”. She did not rule out the possibility of appealing to the ECHR, but added that the legal team would have no more than 24 hours to do so.