WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange begins what could be his last chance to stop his extradition from Britain to the United States on Tuesday after more than 13 years battling the authorities in the English courts.
U.S. prosecutors are seeking to put Assange, 52, on trial on 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks’ high-profile release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables.
They argue the leaks imperilled the lives of their agents and there is no excuse for his criminality. Assange’s many supporters hail him as an anti-establishment hero and a journalist, who is being persecuted for exposing U.S. wrongdoing and committing alleged war crimes.
Assange’s legal battles began in 2010, and he subsequently spent seven years holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London before he was dragged out and jailed in 2019 for breaching bail conditions. He has been held in a maximum-security jail in southeast London ever since, even getting married there.
Britain finally approved his extradition to the U.S. in 2022 after a judge initially blocked it because concerns about his mental health meant he would be at risk of suicide if deported.
His lawyers will try to overturn that approval at a two-day hearing in front of two judges at London’s High Court in what could be his last chance to stop his extradition in the English courts. His wife Stella last week described it as a matter of life and death.
They will argue that Assange’s prosecution is politically motivated and marks an impermissible attack on free speech, as the first time a publisher has been charged under the U.S. Espionage Act.
His supporters include Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, media organisations which worked with WikiLeaks and Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who last week voted in favour of a motion calling for his return to Australia.
Pope Francis even granted his wife an audience last year.
‘HE WILL DIE’
If Assange wins permission in the latest case, a full appeal hearing will be held to again consider his challenge. If he loses, his only remaining option would be at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) where he has an appeal already lodged pending the London ruling.
Speaking last week, Stella Assange said they would apply to the ECHR for an emergency injunction if necessary. She said her husband would not survive if he was extradited.
“His health is in decline, physically and mentally,” she said. “His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison – and if he is extradited he will die.”
Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton compared the WikiLeaks founder with Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition activist who died in prison on Friday while serving a three-decade sentence.
“I know exactly what it feels like to have a loved one unjustly incarcerated with no hope,” he told the BBC. “To have them pass away, that’s what we live in fear of: that Julian will be lost to us, lost to the U.S. prison system or even die in jail in the UK.”
WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 when it published a U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
It then released thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables that laid bare often highly critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.
EXPLAINER:
Who is Julian Assange
Assange was born in Townsville, Australia, in July 1971, to parents who were involved in theatre and travelled frequently.
In his teens, Assange gained a reputation as a sophisticated computer programmer and in 1995 he was arrested and pleaded guilty to hacking. He was fined, but avoided prison on condition he did not reoffend. In his late 20s, he went to Melbourne University to study mathematics and physics.
What is WIKILEAKS?
Assange launched WikiLeaks in 2006, creating a web-based “dead letter drop” for would-be leakers.
The website rose to prominence in April 2010 when it published a classified video showing a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff.
It released more than 90,000 classified U.S. military documents on the war in Afghanistan, and about 400,000 secret U.S. files on the Iraq war. The two leaks represented the largest security breaches of their kind in U.S. military history.
It followed these up with the release of 250,000 secret diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies around the world, with some of the information published by newspapers such as The New York Times and Britain’s Guardian.
The leaks angered and embarrassed U.S. politicians and military officials, who said the unauthorised dissemination put lives at risk.
Ex-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning served seven years in a military prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of messages and cables to WikiLeaks, before being released on the order of President Barack Obama.
Arrest and start of legal battle
On Nov. 18, 2010, a Swedish court ordered Assange‘s detention as a result of an investigation into allegations of sex crimes made by two female Swedish WikiLeaks volunteers. On Dec. 7, 2010, Assange was arrested by British police on a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by Sweden.
Assange denied the allegations and said from the outset that he believed the Swedish case was a pretext to extradite him to the United States to face charges over the WikiLeaks releases.
His extradition to Sweden for questioning was ordered in Feb. 2011 and his subsequent appeals failed. In June 2012, shortly after the UK Supreme Court rejected his final challenge, he entered the Ecuadorean Embassy in London seeking asylum.
Assange’s seven years in Ecuadorean Embassy
Ecuador granted Assange asylum on Aug. 16, 2012, with British police mounting a round-the-clock guard to prevent his escape, saying he would be arrested should he leave.
The impasse left Assange living in cramped quarters in the embassy. Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation in 2017 but British police said he would still be arrested if he left the embassy over his earlier failure to surrender to bail.
During his time in the embassy he had two children with his partner Stella Moris.
Embassy impasse ends, US case begins
On April 11, 2019, a screaming Assange was carried out of the embassy and arrested after Ecuador revoked his political asylum.
The following month he was jailed for 50 weeks for breaching his bail conditions. In June 2019, the U.S. Justice Department formally asked Britain to extradite him to the United States to face 18 charges that he conspired to hack U.S. government computers and violated espionage laws.
Although Assange completed his prison sentence in September 2019, he remained in Belmarsh maximum security prison pending extradition hearings.
On Jan. 4, 2021, a British judge ruled Assange should not be extradited to the United States, saying his mental health problems meant he would be at risk of suicide.
However, the U.S. authorities won an appeal in December 2021 at London’s High Court against that decision, after giving a package of assurances about the conditions of Assange‘s detention if convicted, including a pledge he could be transferred to Australia to serve any sentence.
On March 23, 2022, Assange married his long-term partner Stella in Belmarsh.
Final legal battle?
In June 2022, Britain’s then Home Secretary (interior minister) Priti Patel approved the extradition, and last year a judge at London’s High Court turned down his request for an appeal.
At a two-day hearing starting on Tuesday in front of two senior judges, Assange‘s legal team will begin a final attempt to have the extradition decision reversed in the English courts.
If he succeeds, his case will go to a full appeal. If he loses, the only remaining block to his extradition lies with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) where he already has an application lodged and which could stop his extradition.
Should Assange be extradited, his supporters say he could be held in a U.S. high security jail and if convicted could face a 175 year prison sentence. U.S. prosecutors have said it would be no more than 63 months.