This decision is a victory for the founder of Wikileaks and his lawyers. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that the psychological state of the whistleblower, currently imprisoned in London, was incompatible with extradition.
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British justice considered, Monday, January 4, that Julian Assange could not be extradited to the United States for having obtained and published in 2010 secret American government documents, as well as for hacking. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Julian Assange’s psychological state was incompatible with an extradition.
During a reading of the main elements of her judgment, the judge nevertheless dismissed most of the arguments presented by the defense of the founder of WikiLeaks. She therefore felt that freedom of expression did not preclude the Australian’s extradition.
She was, however, much more receptive to arguments related to his state of health. During the hearing, several professionals who examined Julian Assange had considered that he had great psychological weaknesses, suffering in particular from severe depression and having notably planned his suicide in prison. The judge considered that an extradition to the United States, probably to a high security prison pending trial, put Julian Assange in too great a danger to comply with the American request for extradition.
Fears for freedom of expression
In the United States, the founder of Wikileaks faces a prison sentence of 175 years. In addition to possession and publication of secret documents, he is also accused of hacking for having helped his source to obtain documents. The American prosecution also accuses Julian Assange of having endangered certain informants of the American army by revealing their identity, which the Australian and his team have vehemently denied. At the heart of the American accusations is the activity of WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011, when the organization published, in partnership with numerous media, including Le Monde, secret documents shedding light on the activities of the American army in Iraq, in Afghanistan, but also pieces from the Guantanamo prison or tens of thousands of diplomatic telegrams.
This decision offers a victory to the team of Julian Assange, who said they expected a validation of the extradition, but also to the numerous observers and NGOs who stressed that extradition to the United States, for almost exclusively journalistic acts, represented a serious threat to press freedom. Under Barack Obama, American justice had given up on prosecuting Julian Assange, considering that it was impossible to do so without also blaming the media with which WikiLeaks had worked. The lawsuits were finally relaunched under Donald Trump’s term of office and made public in 2019. “The charges against him in the United States are jeopardizing the foundations of democracy and democracy in our two countries” wrote in mid-December the British daily The Guardian .
This judgment marks a decisive step in the showdown between the Australian and the British and American justice. However, this is not the end of it: the prosecution can appeal the decision of the British courts.