Death penalty not to be imposed, but Wikileaks founder’s wife says Assange won’t be afforded first amendment protections

The US has provided assurances to the high court in London in an attempt to prevent a last-ditch appeal by Julian Assange against extradition, but the WikiLeaks founder’s wife has dismissed them as “weasel words”.

Last month, two judges deferred a decision on whether Assange, who is trying to avoid being prosecuted in the US on espionage charges relating to the publication of thousands of classified and diplomatic documents, could take his case to an appeal hearing.

US prosecutors say the WikiLeaks founder encouraged and helped Chelsea Manning steal classified files before publishing them

Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the decade-long US push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.

For years, Australia has called on the US to drop its prosecution against Assange, an Australian citizen who has fought American extradition efforts from prison in the UK. Asked about the request on Wednesday, as he hosted the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida , for an official visit, Biden said: “We’re considering it.”

It is hypocritical of the US to seek to lock up Assange while boasting about its commitment to press freedom

For Julian Assange, the wait continues. The pause can be counted as a small victory in the long battle to fight his extradition to the United States. But it is one of the many shameful issues in this most shameful of sagas that his waiting room is a cell in a high security prison where he has been held for the past five years, despite having been convicted of nothing.

The high court decision issued by Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson means that the US has been given a short time to offer “assurances” as to how his trial would be conducted and that the death penalty would not be imposed. Astonishingly it has previously been unable to provide them. Assange’s defence team will then be allowed to challenge those “assurances” issued by a country with a long record of ignoring many of the basic rights of anyone deemed to be threatening the security of the state in any way.

Duncan Campbell is a freelance writer who worked for the Guardian as crime correspondent and Los Angeles correspondent

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WikiLeaks founder given temporary reprieve in case against removal from UK to face espionage charges

Julian Assange has been handed a reprieve in his fight against extradition to the US after two judges granted the WikiLeaks founder permission to appeal against his removal from the UK but only if the UK and US are unable to provide the court with suitable assurances.

If Assange had been denied permission to appeal he could have been extradited within days to face espionage charges in the US.

But lawyers for WikiLeaks founder say they have been ‘given no indication’ Washington will change approach in espionage case

The US government is reported to be considering a plea deal offer to Julian Assange, allowing him to admit to a misdemeanor, but his lawyers say they have been “given no indication” Washington intends to change its approach.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the US justice department was looking at ways to cut short the long London court battle of the WikiLeaks founder against extradition to the US on espionage charges for the publication 14 years ago of thousands of classified US documents related to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Kym Staton’s documentary recruits a starry cast of fierce defenders of the imprisoned leaker but makes no room for the case against

Remember Julian Assange? Having dominated headlines in the 2010s, the WikiLeaks founder has dropped out of sight having been confined at London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019. And that was kind of the plan, this impassioned documentary asserts, with the aid of staunch defenders including the late John Pilger, Tariq Ali, Jill Stein, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsworth and Assange family members. “The persecution of Julian has been a long, slow form of killing somebody,” says Pilger; witnessing Assange’s trajectory from a buccaneering truth-teller to a frail, mentally damaged prisoner, perpetually denied justice, it’s hard to disagree.

According to this documentary by Australian film-maker Kym Staton, Assange has been subject to a coordinated smear campaign. It argues that the 2010 rape allegations against Assange by two Swedish women were “trumped up” – although given that we only hear one side of the argument, it is impossible for viewers to come to any informed conclusion on a complex case. (Assange was never formally charged and the investigation was closed in 2019 .)

At the high court, lawyers posed the pivotal question: how can exposing crime and torture be worse than committing them?

Which is the more serious criminal activity: extrajudicial killings, routine torture of prisoners and illegal renditions carried out by a state, or exposing those actions by publishing illegally leaked details of how, where, when and by whom they were committed?

That is essentially the question that was asked this week at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. It has sometimes seemed during the proceedings that the ornate building at the end of Fleet Street, opened by Queen Victoria in 1882, had become more of a theatre than a court. Outside, vast crowds gathered, chanted, listened to speeches, halted traffic and asked passing drivers to hoot their support. Inside, some of the UK’s leading barristers, watched by journalists from all over the world, spelled out the plot to packed public galleries in overflow courts. This drama started more than a decade ago, yet only now are we approaching the final act.

He named sources and encouraged theft and hacking, say lawyers at extradition hearing in London

Criminal charges were brought against Julian Assange because he named sources and encouraged theft and hacking, not because of politics, lawyers for the US government have claimed at a critical extradition hearing.

The Wikileaks founder could be extradited to the US within days to face prosecution on espionage charges relating to the publication of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents concerning the Afghanistan and Iraq wars if the high court in London refuses him permission to appeal his removal from the UK.

WikiLeaks founder’s team says extradition is in breach of treaty, which prohibits doing so for political offences

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is mounting an attempt to prevent his extradition from the UK to the US to face espionage charges.

The charges against the Australian citizen are in connection with the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, in 2010 and 2011.