The U.S. has filed an appeal in London against a British judge’s decision to block Julian Assange’s extradition on health grounds.
Consortium News
The United States has filed an appeal of Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s Jan. 4 decision to block WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States because of an extreme risk of suicide.
Washington’s British lawyers’ filed papers with the High Court in London on Friday, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed to Britain’s Press Association.
The PA reported that the U.S. has been granted an additional fortnight to file details to back up its appeal.
An administrative decision by the High Court is expected on whether to allow the appeal before any hearings could be heard.
The filing came in the final days of the Trump administration, which prosecuted Assange on 17 charges under the Espionage Act and one charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and requested his extradition.
The incoming Biden administration has given no indication how its Department of Justice would deal with the case.
Meanwhile, two days after Baraitser ordered Assange “discharged” she denied him bail and sent him back to Belmarsh Prison, where he has languished since shortly after his arrest on April 11, 2019.
CORRECTION: The U.S. appeal was filed with the court on Friday, not Tuesday as was previously reported.
Someone should file suits – is that the right expression? -against the soldiers who did the shooting, against the authorities who didn’t intervene to do this and the British judge.
Is there in Britain a legally specific period of time in which the appeal must be argued to completion, and a decision by the court delivered?
Shame on the US, UK, Swedish and Ecuadorian governments. Each of them guilty of enabling the continuing torture of Julian Assange in a supposedly free and democratic country. I hope he will get his freedom soon and I hope he will make a full recovery. It really is cruel what they did to him. It’s scandalous that it was allowed to happen.
Biden could put a stop to this in an instant.
Why does everyone assume that is impossible? Right. Biden is actually the bad guy. We just don’t want to look yet.
“Multiple GOP lawmakers had sent messages through aides that they felt strongly about not granting clemency to Assange or Snowden,” according to CNN.
And the UK judge reckoned it wasn’t political!!!
There may be a ‘silver lining’ – involvement of a higher forum should mean a judge/judges of higher calibre and integrity than either of the 1st instance judges involved to date, one of whom (being tainted by manifest conflicts of interests) should have had nothing to do with the case! If so, it just might be that an appeal gives the courts the opportunity to row back on some of the severe reputational damage done to the English judicial system by the Assange case and kick some of the faulty reasoning in the rest of la Baraitser’s disgracefully-argued judgment into the dustbin at the same time as rejecting the DoJ’s appeal against the decision not to extradite. Meanwhile, there are NO excuses for keeping Assange at HMP Belmarsh or any other prison!
Baraitser’s full support for the U.S. indictments, which confirmed the criminalization of journalism, will not be a subject of the appeal, unless Assange’s lawyers launch their own appeal of that part of the judgement. The U.S. is only appealing Baraitser’s decision to deny extradition on health grounds. The judge with conflicts of interest in the case that you point out, Lady Emma Arbuthnot, now sits on the High Court, the very court that will hear the U.S. appeal.
Emma Arbuthnot may now be a High Court Judge but, surely, the Lord Chancellor would be insane to allow her to hear the DoJ’s appeal against denial of extradition since her conflicts have now been well-aired?
The High Court of Justice consists of three divisions: the Chancery Division, the Queen’s Bench Division and the Family Division. The Administrative Court of the Queen’s Bench Division is the one that hears judicial reviews and statutory appeals, and oversees the legality of decisions made by lower courts. (Lauri Love’s 2017 appeal against extradition to the US was heard by that same court.)
Arbuthnot’s appointment to the High Court will take effect on 1 February 2021 and – one small mercy – she will be assigned to the Family Division.
How dreadful! Thank you, Consortium News, for keeping us appraised of the corrupt details of this appalling travesty of a case.
How wonderful it will be, the day that real truth and justice prevails and Julian Assange is set free.
“republican cabal” is a cabal of the American republic’s rulers, not the GOP. Anyone expecting Biden to act differently and pardon Mr Assange will be waiting a long time.
That just confirms the opinion I had of Trump all along. Worthless!
Not at all surprised! The sign of the US state system engulfed in Darkness at Noon!
#FreeAssangeNOW
#FreePressMatter!
#JournalismIsNotACrime!
It is of great interest to the Parasite Militairy Industrial Complex and their shareholders that the wars can continue to be rolled out under false motives. The uncovering of the derailment of american forces and politics by free press disturbs the cashflow.
Then why did she send him back to jail, if the US had not submitted their appeal yet?
Yeah, as if we’re going to get an answer to that.
she considers him a flight risk
Now we’ll find out the true nature of Biden currently getting the kind of adulation that would accompany the return of Christ. If he truly seeks to change and lead, then the US will quit the political show trial. Dont hold your breath.
My thoughts exactly. All you have to do as president is have a “D” after your name and you are officially canonized. You can, and will, get away with countless murders. There’s no better position in the world for a sociopath.
It would seem that the US is appealing the finding that its prison system is so appalling that Assange will commit suicide. That, it would seem to me, would be a matter that it would not be difficult to provide reassurances on.
The verdict as a whole, and apart from that finding, was in the US favour.
The defence is the party which ought to be appealing: the question of prison conditions in the US ought not to be relevant.
“The PA reported that the U.S. has been granted an additional fortnight to file details to back up its appeal. ” So ten years of disgusting persecution are not enough for a nation that cannot bear any of its many wrongs to be exposed to the public. To mention Trump, who seems to have no human feeling, “pardonning” Julian for his non-crimes is worse than a sick joke.
It is not suicide but the treatment of Julian in Belmarsh that may kill him. I wonder if Vanessa Baraitser will be charged with his murder.
Clearly the judge has bounced back liabiloty to HMP service …they are responsible for medical”treatment” ….and consequences while he is in their charge. Medical care seems to be not the best in the interests if their patient but for UK justice system. Shortcomings were noted by defence lawyers.
The republican cabal behind this prolongation of Assange’s torture are truly sick little men who have no business to be sitting on legislative matters of any kind. They need psychological help to deal with the mental degradation of their individual minds and then put out to pasture in Guantanamo Bay.
John Stanley
It’s not partisan.
Trump still has one day to pardon Assange, but I fear it won’t happen. The situation I am afraid looks pretty dire for Assange. I do not expect much from a Biden administration. Biden is a bad guy.
Trump would probably have already pardoned Julian, had he perceived the act to be of personal financial benefit. Perhaps he still might if Wikileaks agreed to fork over the going rate of $2 million?
It’s very unlikely that Julian Assange will be released from prison. It’s Washington that decides the FINAL outcome. More important is for USA they don’t want lose their grip on the FREE PRESS since in that case it will OPEN A CAN of WORMS about US GLOBAL atrocities in the past 75 years in Korea, Vietnam, Africa S. America & the Middle East!
Let’s hope the High Court wisely refuses to accept this “appeal”.
They know or should know that this false accusation against an honest publisher who considers it his duty as a journalist and publisher to inform the public of wrongdoing done in our name and with our tax dollars will continue to be a stain on the British courts, the British government and the Monarchy itself for staying silent in the face of this political witch hunt.
The British court and British government have already stained themselves by allowing the dishonorable Emma Arbuthnot to mock and convict Assange. The naughty Emma is a wife of a known war profiteer (and opportunistic zionist) the dishonorable James Arbuthnot, “a former Conservative defense minister with extensive links to the British military and intelligence community exposed by WikiLeaks.”
Thanks for that background especially because it seems to prove once again that when the Big Bucks are involved the “deciders” rarely have arms length disinterest in the outcome…..
The simple protocol seems to be – keep the public ill informed through secrecy laws that protect wrongdoers and punish the journalists who get to the bottom of it all and publish.
So, as far as a foreign policy that would appeal to the largest segment of the population, instead we have dictatorships not democracies and the benevolent dictators are very few and far between….
Our hope is Trump will pardon him but this is not a good indicator. The US prosecutors know Trump isn’t going to? Or they just can’t let go of their vendetta.
Extradition appeals go from the Magistrates’ Court to the High Court. Not the Court of Appeal. Not your fault, the Press Association article says Court of Appeal.
That’s what I always thought, Mohammed. But I thought I was wrong. So the High Court will make he administrative decision on whether or not to accept the appeal then.