Julian Assange’s extradition to the US blocked by UK judge

Mr. Assange will now be taken back to Belmarsh Prison – where he is being held while a full application for his bail will be made on Wednesday. His Lawyer Ed Fitzgerald told the court there will be evidence to show Mr. Assange will not abscond.

 It was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2009 for patients with a terminal disease in spite of its toxicity.

District Judge Vanessa Baraister ruled that while US prosecutors met the tests for Mr. Assange to be extradit4ed for trial, the US was incapable of preventing him from attempting to take his own life and said “The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man fearful for his future. Faced with the conditions of near-total isolation without the protective factors which limited his risk at HMP Belmarsh, I am satisfied the procedures described by the US will not prevent Mr. Assange from finding a way to commit suicide and for this reason, I have decided extradition would be oppressive by reason of mental health and I order his discharge”.

Mr. Assange faces a 19-count indictment from the US government, accusing him of conspiring to hack into military databases to acquire sensitive secret information relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which was then published on the Wikileaks website. He says the information exposed abuses by the US military.

Assange is a valiant campaigner for truth. For his supporters, he is highly intelligent with an exceptional ability to crack computer codes, although, to his critics, he is a publicity seeker who has endangered lives by putting a mass of sensitive information into the public domain. He set up Wikileaks in 2006, making headlines around the world in April 2010 when it released footage showing US soldiers shooting dead 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq. A year later he was detained in the UK and later bailed after Sweden issued an international arrest warrant over allegations of sexual assault. He says both encounters were entirely consensual and a long legal battle ensued which saw him seeking asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London to avoid extradition.  He was arrested by British police on 11 April 2019 after Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno tweeted that his country had taken “ a sovereign decision” to withdraw his asylum status. On 1 May 2019, Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching his bail conditions. Weeks later an investigation into the 2010 rape allegation against Assange was reopened by Swedish prosecutors.

Later that month, the US filed 17 new charges against Assange for violating the Espionage Act, related to the publication of classified documents in 2010. As Assange prepared to fight against extradition to the US, Swedish prosecutors announced that the investigation into the 2010 rape allegation had been dropped.

 Mr. Assange, who wore a blue suit and green face mask in the dock, closed his eye as the judge read out her ruling on Monday. Stell Moris, his fiancée, with whom he has two young sons, wept and was comforted by Wikileaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, who sat next to her in court.