WikiLeaks' founder Assange vows to fight extradition from UK to United
States
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[June 18, 2022]
By Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) -The wife of Julian
Assange vowed to fight using every possible legal avenue after British
Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday approved the WikiLeaks' founder's
extradition to the United States to face criminal charges.
Assange is wanted by U.S. authorities on 18 counts, including a spying
charge, relating to WikiLeaks' release of vast troves of confidential
U.S. military records and diplomatic cables which Washington said had
put lives in danger.
His supporters say he is an anti-establishment hero who has been
victimised because he exposed U.S. wrongdoing in conflicts in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and that his prosecution is a politically
motivated assault on journalism and free speech.
His wife Stella said Assange would appeal after the Home Office said his
extradition had been approved as British courts had concluded it would
not be unjust or an abuse of process.
"We're going to fight this. We're going to use every appeal avenue,"
Stella Assange told reporters, calling the decision a "travesty". "I'm
going to spend every waking hour fighting for Julian until he is free,
until justice is served."
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His brother, Gabriel Shipton, told Reuters the appeal would include new
information not previously taken to the courts, including claims made in
a report last year of plans to assassinate him.
Originally, a British judge ruled Assange, 50, should not be deported,
saying his mental health meant he would be at risk of suicide if
convicted and held in a maximum security prison.
But this was overturned on an appeal after the United States gave a
package of assurances, including a pledge he could be transferred to
Australia to serve any sentence.
The Home Office said the courts had not found that extradition would be
incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial
and to freedom of expression, and that he would be treated
appropriately.
The Australian-born Assange has been involved in a legal fight in
Britain for more than a decade and it could now go on for many more
months.
He has 14 days to appeal to London's High Court, which must give its
approval for a challenge, and he could ultimately seek to take his case
to the United Kingdom Supreme Court and the European Court of Human
Rights.
'CHILLING MESSAGE'
"We're not at the end of the road here," Stella Assange said, calling
Patel's decision "a dark day for press freedom and for British
democracy".
Nick Vamos, the former head of extradition at Britain's Crown
Prosecution Service, said verdicts were regularly overturned by the High
Court. Assange would be able to claim again it was politically motivated
and use new evidence, such as his allegations the CIA had plotted to
assassinate him.
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![](../images/061822PIX/news_l61.jpg)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a police van, after he
was arrested by British police, in London, Britain April 11, 2019.
REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
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The CIA has declined to comment on his claims.
"I think he might get some traction," Vamos told Reuters.
WikiLeaks first came to prominence when it published a U.S. military
video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad
that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
It then released hundreds of thousands of secret classified files
and diplomatic cables in what was the largest security breach of its
kind in U.S. military history.
U.S. prosecutors and Western security officials regard Assange as a
reckless enemy of the state whose actions imperilled the lives of
agents named in the leaked material.
He and his supporters argue that he is being punished for
embarrassing those in power and faces 175 years in prison if found
guilty, although the U.S. lawyers have said it would be more like
four to six years.
"Allowing Julian Assange to be extradited to the U.S. would put him
at great risk and sends a chilling message to journalists the world
over," said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary
general.
The Australian government said it would continue to tell London and
Washington that the case had "dragged on for too long and should be
brought to a close".
The legal saga began at the end of 2010 when Sweden sought Assange's
extradition from Britain over allegations of sex crimes. When he
lost that case in 2012, he fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in London,
where he spent seven years.
When he was finally dragged out in April 2019, he was jailed for
breaching British bail conditions although the Swedish case against
him had been dropped. He has been fighting extradition to the United
States since June 2019 and remains in jail.
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During his time in the Ecuadorean embassy, he fathered two children
with his now wife, who he married in Belmarsh high-security prison
in London in March at a ceremony attended by just four guests, two
official witnesses and two guards.
(Additional reporting by Kirtsy Needham in Sydney and Kanishka Singh
in Washington; Editing by Kate Holton and Alison Williams)
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