The last hope for Julian Assange

Julian Assange is not feeling well and is not participating, even by video link, in the hearing before the British High Court, a last-ditch effort by his lawyers to prevent the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition to the United States, where he would face espionage charges and risk up to 175 years in prison.

If extradition is confirmed, Assange could leave immediately for the U.S.

The two-day hearing is to consider whether Assange could be granted permission to appeal an extradition decision made in 2022 by then-Interior Minister Mrs. Priti Patel. If the appeal is granted, Assange will have another chance to argue his case in a London court, with a date set for a full hearing. Should the judges reject the request, it is possible that the WikiLeaks founder could be immediately sent to the United States. In the event of a negative decision, he could always go to the European Court of Human Rights, but there are fears that he could be extradited before he can appeal.

The United States is demanding that the 52-year-old Australian citizen be extradited after he was indicted several times between 2018 and 2020 in connection with WikiLeaks’ publication in 2010 of files related to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The site founded by Assange released hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. documents early last decade in one of the largest data leaks in the country’s history.
Stella Assange: “His life is in danger; if extradited, he will die.”

His wife, Stella Assange, said, “His life is in danger every single day he spends in prison. If he is extradited, he will die,” and highlighted Julian’s increasingly precarious physical and mental health condition after nearly five years in solitary confinement in London’s Belmarsh maximum security prison