ABC News Australia Listen to the reporter in that video, "But it won't be the end of the matter. With the appeals process, it could take many more years" This is a man who was stuck inside a small room in an embassy for nearly 7 years, then held in prison for nearly 11 months (having been arrested in April last year). The extradition hearing to determine whether Assange will be extradited to the United States has already started. But even if the judge decides not to extradite, there will likely be appeal process, and that process could drag on for several years. Most likely Assange will continue to be held in prison during this time. This hearing now underway was supposed to be the "final showdown", where we would actually get to hear some official allegations against Assange for the first time in court, and this is the first time Assange and his lawyers have had the opportunity to really defend against them. But now to find out this could drag on for several more years. If any of you are wondering how long exactly an appeals process for something like this could take, it's probably going to be somewhere between one and a half to two and half years. Of course some people will say Assange could have just faced justice directly in the US in the first place, but then he would have had to face the potential of injustice there and put himself under US jurisdiction. And he likely would have spent a year and a half to maybe two and a half years in prison before his trial there too, due to the legal complexities of the case, the time his legal defense would need to prepare, and all the animosity/bias there that exists against him. Let's go back a little further and cover some of the history. Initially, Assange was sought based on something he is alleged to have done while he was in Sweden. (That's not really the main story, it's a detour in the story, that had ramifications lasting up to this day) Assange turned himself in to the police in London (the UK) and was released on bond, pending a hearing for extradition to Sweden. Assange was not really the slightest bit concerned about facing punishment in Sweden, what he was concerned about is that once he was in Sweden, the authorities there might extradite him to the US. At that time there were no charges against him from the US, but Assange suspected (and correctly, it would later turn out) that the US was going to issue charges and seek his extradition. Now here's where it starts to get overly complicated, but I feel it has to be addressed here, what happened in Sweden. He was accused of 'sexual misconduct'. Now, that sounds bad, but what you have to realize is this is not really rape nor anything necessarily really despicable. The legal and social situation in Sweden's society has some big differences from other normal countries like the UK or US. I realize this is a little bit debatable, but I have researched into the details of the story, and what Assange is alleged to have done in Sweden probably would not be prosecuted as a crime if it had happened in another country. For those of you who may think "If Assange didn't want to find himself in the mess he's now in, he shouldn't have broke the law in Sweden", it's not that simple. From the details I've read into, it looks like it may have been a case radical feminism making a big legal deal over something that actually wouldn't be all that uncommon in many people's sex lives. I mean it's almost laughable. But the media in other countries completely misrepresented (whether intentionally or not) what the actual nature of this 'sexual misconduct' was, making Assange to look like a rapist or some sort of demented fiend. Because of the great complexities of this tangent to the story, I've started a separate thread about it, and we can take our discussion of Assange's accusations in Sweden there. Assange Accusations in Sweden The real irony, something I keep pointing out, is every thing Assange has been accused of, in Sweden, in the US, and the UK, would not have been a crime if it had occurred in the other two countries. I mean, neither the US or UK would ever have sought to punish him for the type of 'sexual misconduct' he is alleged to have committed in Sweden; neither the UK or Sweden would ever seek to charge an individual for the type of 'espionage' Assange is being accused of in the US; and neither the Sweden or the US would ever make it a separate criminal charge for breeching bail conditions. Yet all three things are very much interrelated in this story. It's like Assange is facing the worst of the legal situations in three separate different worlds. Like "the perfect storm", from a legal perspective and national jurisdiction. Do you know what, to me at least, the most frustrating part of this is? That this story is so complicated, it is very difficult for people to understand all its facets in such a casual discussion, like we are prone to having in these online political forums. A lot of people simply cannot comprehend how all the different facets connect together, it takes too much intellectual brain power to really make sense of it. Yet there is profound injustice going on. Just to repeat again: This is an Australian citizen who is accused by the US of a crime he did not commit in the US, and it is a crime purely of information. The US legal system is asserting it has the legal right to arrest foreign citizens in foreign countries for sending information. And Assange was (and is) so concerned he could face a nearly lifetime prison sentence in the US, he put himself through everything he had been through. Based on the details that emerged from Sweden, I can tell you that even if Assange was convicted of the 'sexual misconduct' he is alleged to have committed there, he would likely only be sent to prison for between 6 to 14 months. If it was really the accusations in Sweden that Assange was trying to escape, he had absolutely no reason to hold himself up in an embassy room for nearly 7 years, really a far worse punishment. A court in the UK sentenced Assange to nearly a year in prison for "breeching bail". Assange only did this because he was trying to escape the possibility of a lifetime of punishment in the US. (If the UK sent him to Sweden, then Sweden could send him to the US.) But that's really besides the point, in a sense, because even if the court had not given Assange an explicit sentence for breeching bail, they still would likely have held him in prison while awaiting an extradition hearing to the US. Because once you breech bail, judges assume you can no longer be trusted to be out on bail again. And let me point out that Assange could have never been convicted of breeching bail if he had not turned himself into police in the first place, if he had just immediately fled and sought refuge into that embassy in the first place when he knew that authorities wanted him. So in a sense, one could say his "crime" here was trusting the courts, and then later changing his mind and not trusting them. So this is another absurdity of "justice" that has been carried out. And let me just point out the possibility that, even if Assange had tried following all the rules and trusting the system, it is still very much within the realm of possibility they could have found a reason to deny him bail, once the charges from the US hit. It's a case where Assange is now damned since he did, and he could have also been damned if he didn't. This whole story has so many facets, I can't really weave everything together in a simple thread like this. One would really need to write a book to truly cover all the different ways this is wrong. And there are so many different ways this is wrong. And the story is complicated, and has many different smaller stories within the larger story, and many different arguments. This is a man who didn't really do anything wrong; or didn't really do anything that wrong. Of course the details start getting complicated when you get into them and can be a bit controversial. There's no easy simple way to summarize this story that's purely objective and not opinion. And that's part of what makes this whole thing so frustrating. In my strong opinion, this is a terrible terrible injustice. I would go far as to use the word evil, really. And it all is perfectly legal. That's the disturbing part. I find it amazing, and disturbing, how many people don't seem to care.
Mr Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy (located in London) in April, having sought asylum in the building for seven years. He is wanted on 18 charges in the US, including violation of the espionage act. Many of the charges relate to founding and working at WikiLeaks - which openly published sensitive and classified documents, including more than a million files leaked by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. Sweden's request to extradite him was rejected by courts in the country, delaying any potential action and prompting home secretary Sajid Javid to approve the request of the US government pending his trial. Human rights organisations have raised concerns over the duration of Assange’s incarceration, including his time spent in the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he was left unable to leave for fear of arrest. Nils Melzer, the UN's Special Rapporteur on torture and other inhumane punishment, said he condemned the imprisonment, said "I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law. The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...on-father-john-shipton-award-un-a9124586.html Oh, yes, isn't it interesting how now, all of a sudden, after the US has filed charges, a court in Sweden has suddenly decided "he doesn't need to be detained" and have dropped their extradition request, so that now he can face extradition directly to the US without hindrance, and the Swedish court system can wash their hands of the whole affair. This was the reason that Assange was trapped inside that embassy, because he feared the UK court would extradite him to Sweden, where he had less political support and would be more likely to then be extradited to the US.
An update to the story. He ended up being held for a total of 3 years. He was grabbed out of the embassy in April 2019, and now as of April 2022 they have finally decided to extradite him to the US. He suffered in Belmarsh prison (in London) being held in solitary confinement, suffering mental issues (not surprising given everything he had gone through), and then finally suffering through lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, when many prisoners were confined to their small rooms for 23 hours per day. Prison conditions in the US are expected to be even worse.
update: In June 2023, Assange lost his latest bid to halt his extradition after an appeal to the UK High Court was dismissed. Further appeals before the UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights are afoot, but their prospects of success would appear low. The reality is that all of Assange's legal options are now running out. The only realistic chance that Assange has to avoid extradition is some form of political intervention. The AUSMIN (Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations) talks suggest that the prospects of a political breakthrough are also slim. Of more significance were statements made, alongside Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong, by Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State. Blinken is the most senior US government official to speak about Assange for some time. He acknowledged that Wong had made representations and indicated he "understood" the views of Australians. But significantly, Blinken added: "I think it's very important that our friends here understand our concerns about this matter ... Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country. The actions that he is alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security to the benefit of our adversaries and put named human sources at grave risk." There is significant misunderstanding that somehow Australia can magically resolve Assange's plight. Assange may well be an Australian citizen, however legally Australia is not a part of any of his legal proceedings and never has been. The quickest solution to Assange's legal woes would be for the United States to drop its extradition request. There was hope among Assange's supporters that the pursuit would end after Donald Trump won the presidency, and again some false hope in 2021 that Joe Biden would withdraw the extradition request on becoming president, but this did not occur. Only two political options remain that may bring about a resolution for Assange. The first is that concern over his health reaches such a dire state that UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman reverses a June 2022 UK decision to extradite Assange in response to the US extradition request. The other would be for Australian Prime Minister Albanese to make a direct plea to Biden, in the hope that Biden would not risk the political backlash such a decision would generate right before the upcoming elections. The Australian Prime Minister has publicly made it clear that he wants to help Assange and has bipartisan support in Australian. The vanishing options for Julian Assange, Donald R. Rothwell, The Interpreter, August 3, 2023
The final appeal against extradition to the U.S. is set to begin in February 2024. Assange has formally been charged by U.S. prosecutors on 18 counts, including one under a spying act, relating to WikiLeaks' release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables which prosecutors claim had put lives in danger. The U.K. has given the go-ahead for his extradition, but Assange's defense lawyers have been trying to overturn that decision in court. The hearing is expected to take place at the High Court on February 20 to 21, where two judges will review an earlier ruling which had refused Assange permission to appeal. "The two-day hearing may be the final chance for Julian Assange to prevent his extradition to the United States," WikiLeaks said in a statement. WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 when it released hundreds of thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables in what was the largest security breach of its kind in U.S. military history, which U.S. prosecutors say imperiled the lives of agents named in the leaked material. Assange's supporters say he is an anti-establishment hero who has been victimised because he exposed U.S. wrongdoing, and that his prosecution is an assault on journalism and free speech. Julian Assange's 'final' appeal against U.S. extradition to be held in February, Reuters, December 19, 2023 Assange has now been held in prison for 4 years and almost 10 months, since his forced ejection from the embassy. (from 11 April 2019 to today 7 February 2024 ) Assange was sentenced to nearly 50 weeks (nearly a year) in prison for skipping bail, because he sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian embassy. (He did so knowing that U.K. authorities were going to extradite him to Sweden, and fearing that Sweden would then extradite him to the U.S.) But the rest of that time has been spent fighting extradition to the U.S., with the court appearances and appeals dragging on.
What is this hearing about? If the judges grant Assange the right to launch a fresh appeal, it will enable him to ask the European Court of Human Rights to block the extradition. If the appeal is rejected - and possibly even if the court rules in his favor - he's likely to be put on a plane to face the U.S. courts. The High Court judges, Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, could take weeks to consider their ruling, but the hearing is scheduled to take place over two days. What are the charges against Assange in the U.S.? In 2019, a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Assange on 18 charges over the publication of classified documents in 2010. The charges include 17 counts of "espionage" and one charge of "computer intrusion". In a statement, the U.S. Department of Justice said Assange was complicit in the actions of Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, in "unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense." One of the most contentious of WikiLeaks' publications was video from a 2007 U.S. military helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed 11 people. The Guardian newspaper argued in its editorial section this week that journalists need whistleblowers such as Assange, particularly on matters of national security. "No one should face such treatment for publishing information in the public interest. It's time to protect journalism, press freedom, and all of our right to know." "Journalists must have the right to report the facts that governments and corporations want to hide, otherwise a truly free press is impossible." What to know as Julian Assange faces a ruling on his U.S. extradition case over WikiLeaks secrets, Duarte Dias, CBS News, Feb 20, 2024 February 14, 2024 More than 35 American law professors have co-signed a letter imploring U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to "uphold the First Amendment" and drop the Department of Justice's efforts to extradite Julian Assange. The letter comes less than a week before Julian Assange returns to court in London as the UK High Court considers his final attempt to appeal his extradition from the United Kingdom. Press freedom organizations and human rights groups have been sounding the alarms over the prosecution as a landmark threat to the First Amendment right to publish. "We are united in our concern about the constitutional implications of prosecuting Assange," the law professors write. "We believe the Espionage Act charges against him pose an existential threat to the First Amendment." The professors write that although their "personal views on Assange and WikiLeaks vary," they are nonetheless "united in our concern about the constitutional implications of prosecuting Assange." Those implications, they explain, "could extend beyond the Espionage Act and beyond national security journalism to enable prosecution of routine newsgathering under any number of ambiguous laws and untested legal theories." Signatories include both active and retired law professors from across the United States, including Marjorie Cohn, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, Richard Falk, former UN Special Rapporteur. One of the signers is James Goodale, the former vice president and general counsel for The New York Times and an adjunct professor at Fordham School of Law. He believes that, if Assange is convicted, similar prosecutions seeking to criminalize investigative reporting are inevitable. Goodale told the Freedom of Press Foundation, which helped organize the letter: "Based on my experience, which includes serving as The New York Times’ general counsel when the Nixon administration tried to indict a journalist under the Espionage Act for publishing the Pentagon Papers, I am confident that a successful prosecution of Julian Assange would lead to similar charges against journalists from newspapers like the Times when they uncover secrets that embarrass officials. This would be absolutely disastrous for press freedom in the United States." Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, said: "Scholars, lawyers, media publishers and activists all agree that the prosecution of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act is sure to lead to prosecutions of journalists for doing their jobs. It seems the only people who disagree are the DOJ. It's time for them to finally drop this dangerous prosecution. Whether you love or hate Julian Assange, if he comes first, a journalist you do like may come next." Law professors to DOJ: Drop Assange prosecution FPF Logo for circles, Freedom of the Press Foundation Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI) led Congressmembers Jamaal Bowman (NY), Cori Bush (MO), Greg Casar (TX), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN) and Ayanna Pressley (MA) in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to uphold the First Amendment's protections for the freedom of the press by dropping the Trump-era charges against Australian publisher Julian Assange and withdrawing the American extradition request currently pending with the British government. "Press freedom, civil liberty, and human rights groups have been emphatic that the charges against Mr. Assange pose a grave and unprecedented threat to everyday, constitutionally protected journalistic activity, and that a conviction would represent a landmark setback for the First Amendment," the lawmakers wrote. Tlaib Leads Letter to DOJ to Drop Charges Against Julian Assange; Defends Freedom of Press - Rashida Tlaib (house.gov) , April 11, 2023
