Julian Assange loses latest bid to stop extradition to the US on spying charges

Julian Assange loses latest bid to stop extradition to the US on spying charges
A British decide has rejected the newest try by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to battle extradition to the United States to face spying costs.

High Court justice Jonathan Swift stated a brand new attraction would merely “re-run” arguments that Assange’s attorneys had already made and misplaced.

Assange has battled in British courts for years to keep away from being despatched to the US, the place he faces 17 costs of espionage and one cost of laptop misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of labeled diplomatic and army paperwork greater than a decade in the past.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (AP)

In 2021, a British district decide dominated that Assange shouldn’t be extradited as a result of he was more likely to kill himself if held underneath harsh US jail circumstances. US authorities later offered assurances that the Australia-born Assange would not face the extreme therapy that his attorneys stated would put his bodily and psychological well being in danger.

Those assurances led Britain’s High Court and Supreme Court to overturn the decrease courtroom’s ruling, and the British authorities authorised extradition in June 2022.

Assange is looking for to halt extradition by acquiring a brand new courtroom listening to on elements of his case that have been dismissed by the primary decide.

But in a ruling made public on Friday, Swift stated all eight elements of Assange’s potential attraction weren’t “arguable” and shouldn’t be heard.

“The proposed appeal comes to no more than an attempt to re-run the extensive arguments made to and rejected by the district judge,” he stated.

Assange’s spouse, Stella Assange, stated the WikiLeaks founder would make a brand new attraction try at a High Court listening to on Tuesday. He has nearly exhausted his avenues of attraction within the UK however might nonetheless attempt to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Assange’s supporters and attorneys keep he was appearing as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech. (AP)

“We remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States, where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the US government,” Stella Assange stated on Twitter.

Assange’s supporters and attorneys keep he was appearing as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech. They argue that the case is politically motivated, that he would face inhumane therapy and be unable to get a good trial within the US.

Assange, 51, stays in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, the place he has been since he was arrested in 2019 for skipping bail throughout a separate authorized battle. Before that, he spent seven years contained in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to keep away from extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Sweden dropped the intercourse crimes investigations in November 2019 as a result of a lot time had elapsed, however British judges have saved Assange in jail pending the result of the US extradition case.

Source: www.9news.com.au