British judge rejects extradition of Assange to US citing suicide risk

Reuters

A BRITISH judge on Monday blocked WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States to face espionage charges, finding he was at serious risk of suicide.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said the 49-year-old Australian publisher faced “oppressive” conditions in maximum-security isolation if detained in the US.

In court, Assange wiped his forehead as the decision was announced while his fiancee Stella Moris burst into tears and was embraced by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson.

Outside the Old Bailey court in London, his supporters who had gathered since early morning erupted in cheers and shouted “Free Assange!”

US prosecutors are set to appeal yesterday’s decision to London’s High Court, and ultimately the case could go to the UK Supreme Court.

Assange’s lawyers will seek bail for their client on Wednesday, who has spent most of the last decade either in prison or self-imposed confinement.

Any decision to block extradition should meet a high bar given Britain’s treaty obligations, Baraitser said. But facing the “harsh conditions” likely in the US jail system, Assange’s mental health would deteriorate, “causing him to commit suicide” with the determination of a person with autism spectrum disorder, she ruled, siding with a diagnosis by psychologists.

Baraitser said there was a real risk that, if found guilty, Assange would be held in the ADX Florence maximum security prison in almost total isolation, and that he would find a way around their suicide prevention measures.

She rejected US experts’ testimony that Assange would be protected from self-harm, noting that others such as disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein had managed to kill themselves in custody despite wardens’ supervision.

“For this reason I have decided extradition would be oppressive by reason of mental harm and I order his discharge,” she said.

Political motivation

Assange and his legal team have long argued that the protracted case, which has become a “cause celebre” for media freedom, was politically motivated.

In court, Assange’s lawyers argued the case was political and an assault on journalism and freedom of speech.

Baraitser rejected that, however, saying there was insufficient evidence that prosecutors had been pressured by Trump’s team and there was little evidence of hostility from the US president toward him.

She said there was no evidence that Assange would not get a fair trial in the US nor that prosecutors were seeking to punish him, and said his actions had gone beyond investigative journalism.

WikiLeaks came to prominence when it published a US military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people.

Assange is wanted to face 18 charges in the US relating to the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of 500,000 secret files detailing aspects of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If convicted in the US, he faces up to 175 years in jail.

After Sweden first issued an arrest warrant for Assange in 2010 over allegations of sexual assault, he sought asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he remained from 2012 until 2019.

In April 2019, Ecuador revoked his citizenship and police dragged Assange out of the embassy. He was arrested for breaching his bail terms but remained in custody pending the ruling on the extradition request.

The earlier Swedish assault probe against him was dropped due to lack of evidence.