Lawyers tell UK court that WikiLeaks co-founder was ‘being punished for his political views’
Julian Assange’s legal team filed an appeal on Friday to prevent the WikiLeaks co-founder’s extradition to the United States, where he faces espionage charges that carry a prison sentence of up to at 175 years old.
According to WikiLeaks, Assange’s lawyers have filed « advanced grounds of appeal » in the UK High Court of Justice against the US government and UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, who approved Assange’s extradition. the Australian-based publisher in mid-June.
The appeal argues that « Julian Assange is prosecuted and punished for his political opinions,“while the US government”distorted the essential factsof the case to the British courts. He adds that the request for the extradition of the co-founder of WikiLeaks violates the relevant treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as international law.
The document is also said to contain new evidence that has been compiled since the UK court ruled on Assange’s extradition in early 2021.
Read more
Julian Assange appeals his extradition to the United States – WSJ
The editor’s wife, Stella Assange, said: « Damning Evidence Has Emerged Proving the US Lawsuit Against My Husband Is Criminal Abuseadding that the High Court will now decide whether her husband is given the opportunity to plead his case against the United States in public court on appeal.
In early June, the Wall Street Journal reported that Assange’s lawyers had filed two appeals to fight his extradition to the United States, just a day before the deadline for legal action expired. The exact details of the call, however, were unclear.
Assange has effectively been in custody since 2012, when he applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault charges, which have since been abandoned. Ecuador revoked Assange’s asylum status in 2019 and British police moved him from the embassy to the maximum-security Belmarsh prison, where he has remained ever since.
A British court initially refused to hand Assange over to the United States, fearing he would be subjected to inhumane treatment. Later, Washington succeeded in convincing the British judges that the rights of the journalist would be respected. As a result, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel approved the WikiLeaks co-founder’s extradition to the US in mid-June.
Assange has been a target for the United States since 2010, when WikiLeaks released a trove of classified documents detailing alleged war crimes committed by US forces during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has since been charged with conspiracy to hack into Pentagon computers and is charged under the US Espionage Act of 1917 for publishing classified documents.
