WikiLeaks' Julian Assange wins right to appeal U.S. extradition

LONDON — A British court gave WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange permission to launch a full appeal against his extradition to the U.S. on espionage charges Monday, after more than a decade of legal battles.

Two judges at the High Court in London said Assange, who was born in Australia, could have a full appeal to hear his argument that he might be discriminated against because he is a foreign national.

Assange’s legal avenues in the U.K. would have been exhausted had the High Court ruled the extradition could go ahead. His legal team said last week that he could have been put on a plane to the U.S. within 24 hours if it ruled against him.

Assange lawyer Edward Fitzgerald had told the judges they should not accept American prosecutors’ assurance that Assange could seek the protections given under the First Amendment, as a U.S. court would not be bound by that. “We say this is a blatantly inadequate assurance,” he told the court, Reuters reported.

However, Reuters said he had accepted a separate assurance that Assange would not face the death penalty, saying the U.S. had provided an “unambiguous promise not to charge any capital offense.”

It could be months before the appeal is heard.

Assange, 52, was not in court to hear his fate being debated. Fitzgerald said he did not attend for health reasons.

Hundreds of protesters cheered outside the court as news of the verdict came through.

After the hearing, Assange’s wife, Stella, whom he married behind bars in 2022, said at a news conference that her husband was “obviously relieved” by the judgment.

“I think the U.S. administration should take this as a moment to drop the case and put an end to it, to distance itself from this terrible prosecution that this administration did not initiate and should have put an end to already,” she said.

Assange has been fighting extradition for more than a decade, including seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London before he was jailed in the high-security Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London, where he has been held for five years.

Assange has been indicted in the U.S. on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents.

American prosecutors have alleged that he put lives at risk when he helped Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published almost 15 years ago.

James Lewis, a lawyer for the U.S., argued in written submissions that Assange’s actions “threatened damage to the strategic and national security interests of the United States” and put people named in the documents — including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped U.S. forces — at risk of “serious physical harm.”

Assange's attorneys have argued that he engaged in regular journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information and that the prosecution is politically motivated retaliation.

They have said he could face up to 175 years in prison if he is convicted, although American authorities have said the sentence would most likely be much shorter.

Assange’s many supporters worldwide have criticized the prosecution, and there have been calls for the case to be dropped from rights groups, some media bodies and political leaders, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Document drop site

WikiLeaks, which Assange launched in 2006 as a place for leakers to drop classified documents, rose to prominence four years later when it published a classified video provided by Manning.

Recorded in 2007, the video showed a U.S. military helicopter killing civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad. When a van arrived to pick up the wounded, it was also shot at. More than 10 people were killed.

Manning was convicted at a court-martial of espionage and other charges in 2013 for leaking secret military files to WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison but was released in 2017 after President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women.

Two years later, he jumped bail and sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy, which put him out of reach of authorities but effectively trapped him in the building.

After the relationship soured, he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019, and British police immediately arrested him for breaching bail in 2012. He has been in prison ever since, although Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

Although a British district court judge ruled against the extradition request in 2021, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, U.S. authorities won an appeal the next year after they gave a series of assurances about how Assange would be treated if he were extradited. They included a pledge that he could be transferred to Australia to serve his sentence.

The Australian parliament this year called for Assange to be allowed to return to his homeland. Australian authorities have said the case has dragged on for too long, and officials have tried to lobby the U.S. to drop the extradition efforts or find a diplomatic solution that would allow his return.

Asked about it last month, President Joe Biden said his administration was “considering” Australia’s request.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com