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LONDON — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange won a temporary reprieve as he fights his extradition to the U.S. on espionage charges.
London’s High Court has given the U.S. government three weeks to provide “satisfactory assurances” Assange will receive a fair trial; have his first amendment free speech rights protected; and will not face the death penalty if he is extradited from the U.K. to the U.S.
Assange will be allowed a full appeal hearing against his extradition in May if those assurances aren’t provided in time, the court ruled.
The decision extends Assange’s stay at the high security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London, where he has been held since April 2019.
Legal action against Assange started in 2010 after hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were published.
The publisher spent seven years in London’s Ecuadorian embassy between 2012 and 2019 to avoid extradition to Sweden on a separate investigation which was later dropped.
Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed the United States’ extradition request in June 2019, an action supported by subsequent Home Secretary Priti Patel, who signed an extradition order in June 2022.
If extradited to America, Assange’s lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison, while U.S. government lawyers have argued Assange’s actions put innocent lives at risk.
The High Court previously ruled Assange could be extradited in December 2021 following assurances he would not face restrictive prison measures.
