Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been granted leave to go to the Supreme Court to overturn a court decision to allow him to be extradited to the US.
The decision by lord chief justice, Lord Burnett, and Lord Justice Holroyde ruled there was a point of law but denied Assange permission for a direct appeal to the Supreme Court, which means the Supreme Court itself has to decide whether to hear Assange’s appeal.
Though the decision by the high court does offer Assange the hope that the Supreme Court could overturn an earlier judgement made last month that ruled he could be extradited to the US.
That high court decision had overturned yet another decision that held Assange could not be extradited due to concerns about his mental health and the risk of him committing suicide in a US maximum security prison.
Speaking in an interview for the PassW0rd radio podcast Assange’s wife and the mother of his two children Stella Moris said that the Wikileaks founder’s physical and mental condition was declining dangerously.
“Julian is in a bad state and it’s getting worse because he’s in a high security prison. This will be his third Christmas in that high security prison. He’s not serving any sentence. He’s on remand in relation to this political case that the US is taking against him, and his health has seriously deteriorated,” said Moris, adding that the cumulative impact of his flight into asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and his incarceration in prison have had a serious impact on his health.
“He spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy, and he didn’t have any access to the outside and sunlight and fresh air during that time. That’s obviously taken a toll on his health. Since he’s been in Belmarsh prison, he’s been in very bad circumstances physically and it’s having a serious impact on him psychologically as well.”
Moris’s concerns are echoed in many of the other people interviewed for the PassW0rd podcast including Professor Nils Melzer the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, who visited Assange in Belmarsh on May 9, 2019.
“What was worrying when we visited him is that we examined him. I had two medical experts with me, and we all came to the same conclusion separately from each other, that he showed the symptoms typical for psychological torture. We told the British authorities at the time that we were extremely concerned that his state of health was likely to deteriorate rapidly if his conditions of life, especially the arbitrariness around his judicial proceedings, were not alleviated,” said Professor Melzer, who is also the Human Rights Chair of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
Melzer added that Assange’s treatment is designed to deter other journalists.
“To me, this plays into the same kind of playbook that I’ve observed throughout this case, that States are simply imposing unnecessarily and excessively arbitrary conditions on these proceedings and on his person, presumably to scare other journalists, basically to show them what will happen to them if they ever expose serious government misconduct, that is, that the government would prefer to be kept secret.”
That Assange’s actions constituted good and worthwhile journalism was a point that was made to the PassW0rd team by a former senior MI5 officer who was compromised by the revelations of Edward Snowdon the former US National Security Agency whistleblower who is in self-imposed exile in Russia.
““The revelations in the video about the killings by the helicopter gunship were good interesting journalism that exposed war crimes, that was a good thing to do,” said the MI5 officer.
Whether the Supreme Court will see it that way remains to be seen but according to expert legal sources, at the moment, Assange has been given a ray of hope.
“The High Court have certified that Assange’s case involved a point of law of general public importance but declined to grant permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. Assange must now renew his application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court directly but today’s decision keeps his hopes of challenging his removal to the USA alive,” said Thomas Garner, extradition partner at Fladgate LLP:
