Julian Assange is an Australian journalist and the co-founder of Wikileaks.
Assange has been wanted in the USA on espionage charges after WikiLeaks published almost 700.000classified military and diplomatic documents containing multiple national secrets, and that shed light on war crimes committed by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Julian has spent almost seven years in the Ecuador embassy from 2012 while he was free on bail where he sought political asylum, as at the time he was at risk to be extradited to Sweden where he was facing sexual assault charges that were later dropped by a Swedish court.
In addition, being extradited to Sweden may put him at a higher risk to be extradited in the USA where he is facing 18 different charges for a total amount of 175 years of jail, which the public opinion feels would be an important and worrying violation of human right.
He has been later arrested, for jumping bail in 2012, in April 2019 and held in the Belmarsh jail since then, he should be getting married soon, however it depends on multiple factors.
On the 27th of October 2021 has officially begun the appeal trial against Julian Assange after the USA appealed against the UK district court judge Vanessa Baraitser's decision to do not permit the extradition of Julian as, in her point of view, it would be oppressive due to his serious risk of suicide and mental health deterioration.
The lawyer acting for the US Government told the Court of Appeal that the high risk of Assange committing suicide in US prison would not exist as they had assured that he would not be held in punishing isolation at a "supermax" federal prison.
However, Assange’s lawyer, Mark Summer, argued that the risk would be the same and that there were "genuine questions" over the "trustworthiness" of the US pledges.
Mark Summer added that seems like US intelligence agencies have an obsession with Assange, a suspicion that is supported by the recent reports that the CIA had hatched a prior plot to kidnap Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and poison him
Assange’s supporters see him as a hero that has exposed the USA for the wrongdoing in Afghanistan and Iraqand feel that he has been prosecuted due to political reasons: a mere assault to journalism and free speech.
Instead, the US prosecutors regard him as a reckless enemy of the state whose actions threatened the lives of agents named in the leaked material.
The decision of the High Court is forecasted to be provided in some months if not years, if the outcome will be confirming the previous sentence not permitting extradition, then the USA could only refer to the Supreme British court, instead, in the case USA wins the appeal the case will be sent back to a lower court for a new decision.
Bibliography:
コメント