The London High Court has allowed the United States’ appeal to have Wikileaks founder Julian Assange extradited to face criminal charges, after the court felt satisfied that his detention conditions would be tolerable.
Assange had appealed against extradition on mental health grounds, with a district court ruling that it would have been “oppressive” to extradite him on account of his serious risk of suicide and mental health deterioration.
Now, a London High Court judge has said he was satisfied with a package of assurances given by the US about the conditions of Assange's detention including a pledge not to hold him in a so-called "ADX" maximum security prison in Colorado and that he would be transferred to Australia to serve his sentence if convicted.
The case will now be remitted to Westminster Magistrates' Court with the direction judges send it to the British government to decide whether or not Assange should be extradited to the US.
His fiancée Stelle Moris has said their legal team would appeal the ruling at the earliest. “This goes to the fundamentals of press freedom and democracy, we will fight - this is an abusive, vindictive prosecution,” she was quoted as saying.
Moves to prosecute Assange for his work at WikiLeaks have been ongoing since the Bush administration, which took action following the 2010 leaks from intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Assange is accused of aiding the leak of over 500,000 classified American military documents of US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, having received intelligence from former marine Chelsea Manning. Since 2010, he has remained in the United Kingdom, after surrendering himself to British authorities that year. Between 2012 and 2019, Assange sought asylum within the Ecuadorian embassy—a seven-year stay that ended once his relationship with Ecuador soured.
Lawyers for the US government deny that Assange is being prosecuted merely for publishing the leaked documents, saying the case is in large part based upon his unlawful involvement in the theft of the diplomatic cables and military files by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
