UK refuses to extradite Assange to the US, for now

• Published date: 06 January 2021
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Criminal Law, Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, Publishing, White Collar Crime, Anti-Corruption & Fraud, Crime
• Law Firm: Sydney Criminal Lawyers
• Author: Mr Paul Gregoire

"I find that Mr. Assange's risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial," said UK Judge Vanessa Baraitser in her 4 January-delivered final findings into the US extradition case against Australian journalist Julian Assange.

The judicial officer went on to refuse the US request to extradite the Wikileaks founder, basing her decision in part on criteria established in the 2012 case Turner versus the USA, which saw a British citizen unsuccessfully appeal a decision to extradite her to America.

Washington has been seeking to extradite Assange from the UK since April 2019. This is in relation to an initial charge of computer hacking, which was soon ramped up to an indictment that also contains an additional 17 espionage charges, all of which add up to a maximum penalty of 175 years in prison.

This "effective death sentence", as Australian barrister Greg Barns SC has termed it, relates to Assange having published over 700,000 classified US documents online back in 2010.

Although, the US has framed this as a hacking conspiracy between him and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

The UK court decision not to extradite Assange marks a victory for the Townsville-born Australian, however the judge also having found that the US evidence was sufficient enough for the extradition to have gone ahead, doesn't bode well for press freedoms.

"The tide has turned"

"I wasn't expecting it at all. I thought the Brits were going to buckle to the US," said long-term Assange supporter Tony Wakeham. "But, effectively, this decision is the Brits saying to the US, 'No, we're not handing him over.'"

The activist explained that with the US and the UK being the "two strongest members" of the 1946-established Five Eyes security alliance, the British refusal of the American request holds great significance.

Wakeham and other supporters have been staging the Julian Assange Sydney Town Hall Gathering every Friday afternoon for the last fifty eight weeks. And he's determined that they'll be there going into the future until the Australian journalist is returned home.

For now, Assange is still being held in London's Belmarsh prison pending a bail hearing on Wednesday. Having gone on for two years, his prolonged solitary confinement within the notorious British gaol constitutes psychological torture going by United Nations standards.

"The tide has turned, even though he's still in Belmarsh today," Wakeham told Sydney Criminal Lawyers. "It's...