A British court ruled on Friday that Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face charges that could result in decades of jail time, reversing a lower-court decision in the long-running case against the embattled WikiLeaks founder.
The ruling was a victory, at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Mr. Assange begun under the Trump administration. But Mr. Assange will seek to appeal the decision to Britain’s Supreme Court, according to his legal team.
The Justice Department’s decision to charge Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act in connection with obtaining and publishing secret government documents has raised novel First Amendment issues and alarmed advocates of media freedom. But because he has been fighting extradition, those questions have not been litigated and his transfer to the United States could set off a momentous constitutional battle.
The extradition case in Britain has not turned on whether the charges against Mr. Assange are legitimate — a lower-court judge ruled they were — but on whether prison conditions in the United States are too harsh for his mental health.
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In ruling that Mr. Assange can be extradited, the High Court in London said it that was satisfied by assurances provided by the Biden administration that it would not hold him under the most austere conditions reserved for high-security prisoners and that, if he were to be convicted, it would let him serve his sentence in his native Australia if he requested it.
The U.S. Justice Department media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But an American lawyer for Mr. Assange, Barry J. Pollack, denounced the ruling, calling it “disturbing” that the British court accepted the American government’s “vague assurances” of humane treatment.
“The U.K. court reached this decision without considering whether extradition is appropriate when the United States is pursuing charges against him that could result in decades in prison, based on his having reported truthful information about newsworthy issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.
Mr. Assange fled into the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in 2012 when he was facing an investigation on allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, which were eventually dropped. He said he feared his human rights would be violated if he was extradited in that case.
He remained in the embassy for seven years until he was ejected in 2019. The United States unsealed an indictment against him on hacking charges on the day of his expulsion, and then charged him under the Espionage Act weeks later. He has been detained in London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019.
The complex case against Mr. Assange centers on his 2010 publication of diplomatic and military files leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst — not on his publication during the 2016 election of Democratic emails stolen by Russia.
Over the course of three indictments developed during the Trump administration, prosecutors have made two sets of accusations.
The first is that Mr. Assange participated in a criminal hacking conspiracy, both by offering to help Ms. Manning mask her tracks on a secure computer network and by engaging in a broader effort to encourage hackers to obtain secret material and send it to WikiLeaks. The other is that his solicitation and publication of information the government deemed secret violated the Espionage Act.
Hacking is not a journalistic act. But the second set of charges could establish a precedent that journalistic-style activities, like seeking and publishing information the government considers classified, may be treated as a crime in the United States — a separate question from whether Mr. Assange himself counts as a journalist.
In January, a lower court judge rejected the extradition request on the grounds that Mr. Assange might be driven to suicide by American prison conditions. On Jan. 19, in one of its last acts, the Trump administration filed an appeal. Soon after taking office, the Biden administration decided to press forward with the effort.
The court ruling on Friday said the decision to allow the extradition was based on a number of assurances from the United States, including that Mr. Assange would receive any necessary psychological treatment and that if convicted, he would not be held at the country’s only federal supermax prison — the highest security facility, which houses the nation’s worst criminals.
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Several doctors have said that Mr. Assange suffers from depression and memory loss and could attempt suicide if he were extradited, an argument that was central in his case.
Mr. Assange’s fiancé, Stella Moris, said in a statement that he would be appealing at the “earliest possible moment” and called Friday’s decision a “grave miscarriage of justice.” Ms. Moris and Mr. Assange have two children, conceived during the seven years he was hiding out in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, denounced the court’s ruling and warned that Mr. Assange’s life “is once more under grave threat, and so is the right of journalists to publish material that governments and corporations find inconvenient.”
He added, “This is about the right of a free press to publish without being threatened by a bullying superpower.”
Activists who gathered outside the courthouse in central London erupted in protest after the news of the decision filtered outside. And rights groups were quick to condemn the move.
Christophe Deloire, the head of Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement that his group believed Mr. Assange “has been targeted for his contributions to journalism, and we defend this case because of its dangerous implications for the future of journalism and press freedom around the world.”
He added, “It is time to put a stop to this more than decade-long persecution once and for all.”
Jameel Jaffer, the executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, who testified in the extradition proceeding about the implications of the indictment for media freedom, reiterated “profound concerns” about the case in a statement responding to the ruling.
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The indictment, he said, focused in large part on activities that investigative journalists engage in routinely.
“The message of the indictment is that these activities are not just unprotected by the First Amendment but criminal under the Espionage Act,” he said. “The Trump administration should never have filed this indictment, and we call on the Biden administration again to withdraw it.”
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The ruling was a victory, at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Mr. Assange begun under the Trump administration. But Mr. Assange will seek to appeal the decision to Britain’s Supreme Court, according to his legal team.
The Justice Department’s decision to charge Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act in connection with obtaining and publishing secret government documents has raised novel First Amendment issues and alarmed advocates of media freedom. But because he has been fighting extradition, those questions have not been litigated and his transfer to the United States could set off a momentous constitutional battle.
The extradition case in Britain has not turned on whether the charges against Mr. Assange are legitimate — a lower-court judge ruled they were — but on whether prison conditions in the United States are too harsh for his mental health.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
In ruling that Mr. Assange can be extradited, the High Court in London said it that was satisfied by assurances provided by the Biden administration that it would not hold him under the most austere conditions reserved for high-security prisoners and that, if he were to be convicted, it would let him serve his sentence in his native Australia if he requested it.
The U.S. Justice Department media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But an American lawyer for Mr. Assange, Barry J. Pollack, denounced the ruling, calling it “disturbing” that the British court accepted the American government’s “vague assurances” of humane treatment.
“The U.K. court reached this decision without considering whether extradition is appropriate when the United States is pursuing charges against him that could result in decades in prison, based on his having reported truthful information about newsworthy issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.
Mr. Assange fled into the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in 2012 when he was facing an investigation on allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, which were eventually dropped. He said he feared his human rights would be violated if he was extradited in that case.
He remained in the embassy for seven years until he was ejected in 2019. The United States unsealed an indictment against him on hacking charges on the day of his expulsion, and then charged him under the Espionage Act weeks later. He has been detained in London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019.
The complex case against Mr. Assange centers on his 2010 publication of diplomatic and military files leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst — not on his publication during the 2016 election of Democratic emails stolen by Russia.
Over the course of three indictments developed during the Trump administration, prosecutors have made two sets of accusations.
The first is that Mr. Assange participated in a criminal hacking conspiracy, both by offering to help Ms. Manning mask her tracks on a secure computer network and by engaging in a broader effort to encourage hackers to obtain secret material and send it to WikiLeaks. The other is that his solicitation and publication of information the government deemed secret violated the Espionage Act.
Hacking is not a journalistic act. But the second set of charges could establish a precedent that journalistic-style activities, like seeking and publishing information the government considers classified, may be treated as a crime in the United States — a separate question from whether Mr. Assange himself counts as a journalist.
In January, a lower court judge rejected the extradition request on the grounds that Mr. Assange might be driven to suicide by American prison conditions. On Jan. 19, in one of its last acts, the Trump administration filed an appeal. Soon after taking office, the Biden administration decided to press forward with the effort.
The court ruling on Friday said the decision to allow the extradition was based on a number of assurances from the United States, including that Mr. Assange would receive any necessary psychological treatment and that if convicted, he would not be held at the country’s only federal supermax prison — the highest security facility, which houses the nation’s worst criminals.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Several doctors have said that Mr. Assange suffers from depression and memory loss and could attempt suicide if he were extradited, an argument that was central in his case.
Mr. Assange’s fiancé, Stella Moris, said in a statement that he would be appealing at the “earliest possible moment” and called Friday’s decision a “grave miscarriage of justice.” Ms. Moris and Mr. Assange have two children, conceived during the seven years he was hiding out in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, denounced the court’s ruling and warned that Mr. Assange’s life “is once more under grave threat, and so is the right of journalists to publish material that governments and corporations find inconvenient.”
He added, “This is about the right of a free press to publish without being threatened by a bullying superpower.”
Activists who gathered outside the courthouse in central London erupted in protest after the news of the decision filtered outside. And rights groups were quick to condemn the move.
Christophe Deloire, the head of Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement that his group believed Mr. Assange “has been targeted for his contributions to journalism, and we defend this case because of its dangerous implications for the future of journalism and press freedom around the world.”
He added, “It is time to put a stop to this more than decade-long persecution once and for all.”
Jameel Jaffer, the executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, who testified in the extradition proceeding about the implications of the indictment for media freedom, reiterated “profound concerns” about the case in a statement responding to the ruling.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
The indictment, he said, focused in large part on activities that investigative journalists engage in routinely.
“The message of the indictment is that these activities are not just unprotected by the First Amendment but criminal under the Espionage Act,” he said. “The Trump administration should never have filed this indictment, and we call on the Biden administration again to withdraw it.”
U.K. Court Rules Julian Assange Can Be Extradited to U.S.
The WikiLeaks founder will seek to appeal. But if the extradition goes ahead, he would face espionage charges that could put him in prison for decades.
