by Ailan Evans
The U.S. won an appeal in its case to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the United Kingdom.
The U.K.’s High Court ruled Friday that Assange could be returned to the U.S. where he will face multiple charges related to espionage and hacking, reversing a lower court’s decision blocking his extradition.
Assange’s fiancee Stella Morris said she plans to appeal the decision as soon as possible, calling the decision a “grave miscarriage of justice,” CNBC reported.
“For the past two and a half years, Julian has remained in Belmarsh Prison and, in fact, he has been detained since 7 December 2010 in one form or another,” Morris said outside of the High Court on Friday, according to Sky News. “For how long can this go on?”
Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett and Lord Justice Tim Holroyde said they had made their decision due to assurances offered by the U.S. that Assange would not be held in a maximum security prison, that he would be allowed to apply to serve his sentence in his home country of Australia and that he will receive “appropriate clinical and psychological treatment.”
Assange was charged with conspiring to hack into U.S. computers for the purposes of publishing confidential information, and he faces a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
Assange had lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, but he was arrested by British authorities in April 2019 for allegedly skipping bail after Ecuadorian authorities evicted him from the embassy.
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Ailan Evans is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
This decision by the British appeals court is BAD news for those of us who believe in a free watch-dog press. Assange was simply doing his duty by speaking truth to power when he exposed horrible human rights abuses and war crimes being committed by the U.S. and other western powers. These promises by the U.S. not to subject Assange to any brutal reprisals are hogwash, as the C.I.A. (the very agency that wants to torture and kill him) would made the final decision, once Assange is back in the U.S., to decide how to treat–or mistreat–him. The U.S., once it gets him back, can easily reneg and welch on its promises to the British government of humane treatment. We need a strong press to protect the citizens and subjects from blatant abuse of power by the governments that supposed to protect–not oppress-us!