Julian Assange’s wife Stella Assange confirmed that the hearing will take place at the Royal Courts of Justice in the middle of February.
Inside Royal Courts of Justice. (Nick Garrod/Flickr)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Imprisoned publisher Julian Assange will face two High Court judges over two days on Feb. 20-21, 2024 in London in what will likely be his last appeal against being extradited to the United States to face charges of violating the Espionage Act.
Assange’s wife Stella Assange confirmed that the hearing will take place at the Royal Courts of Justice. Assange had had an earlier request to appeal rejected by High Court Judge Jonathan Swift on June 6.
Assange then filed an application to appeal that decision and the dates have now been set. Assange is seeking to challenge both the home secretary’s decision to extradite him as well as to cross appeal the decision by the lower court judge, Vanessa Baraitser.
Baraitser had ruled in January 2021 to release Assange from Belmarsh Prison and deny the U.S. request for extradition based on Assange’s mental health, his propensity to commit suicide and conditions of U.S. prisons. On every point of law, however, Baraitser sided with the United States.
The U.S. appealed her decision, issuing “diplomatic assurances” that Assange would not be mistreated in prison. The High Court, after a two-day hearing in March 2022, accepted those “assurances” and rejected Assange’s appeal.
His application to the U.K. Supreme Court to hear the case was then denied. Assange then applied for a new appeal of Baraitser’s legal decisions and the home secretary’s extradition order.
Swift rejected Assange’s 150-page argument in a three-page ruling. The appeal of that decision will now take place in February. [WATCH: Assange Appeal — The US-UK Deception]
If convicted under the World War I-era Espionage Act, the WikiLeaks publisher and journalist is facing up to 175 years in a U.S. dungeon for publishing classified material revealing crimes by the U.S. state, including war crimes.
Assange was also charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, though the indictment against him does not accuse him of stealing U.S. documents or even of helping his source, Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, to do so.
Day X is here.
The public hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice will be on 20-21 February.
It may be the final chance for the UK to stop Julian’s extradition. Gather outside the court at 8:30am on both days. It’s now or never. #DayX #FreeAssangeNOW #JournalismIsNotACrime pic.twitter.com/RL3e8FMxoJ
— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) December 19, 2023
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe
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FREE Julian Grampa Joe, your grand kids will love you for some day and you will be remembered that way, as kind old man, Grumpa Joe. Other maybe not so much, but they aren’t your family.
Julian’s case is conclusive proof that no good deed goes unpunished.
How many years has it been now that he has been punished and still our government seeks to further punish him simply for publishing secret information that never should have been withheld from public knowledge.
We, as American citizens, should be ashamed for our government’s treatment of Julian Assange, and we should be even more ashamed of the actions of our government that were exposed by the wikileaks files.
Sadly, our pathetic government officials feel no shame for punishing those who expose actions that bring shame to our government.
A lovely picture of Julian. Hopefully these important dates will bring about some semblance of sanity and the judges in the case will free Julian Assange from these ridiculous, fabricated charges brought about by the USA.
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE
Julian Assange is a publisher– and one of TRUTHS, which neither the US nor the UK seem to comprehend. Or perhaps they are just fearful that their own misdeeds will come after them, so they must blame Assange for everything. “FREEDOM ” of the PRESS seems to be lacking in both nations.
Where is the Australian government? It should be loudly demanding justice for its own citizen. Nothing says “US vassal state” louder than this.
Agree totally. All it has done is make a few feeble ‘token’ gestures. The response from the US was like a giant swatting a fly.
Any and all ‘principles’ that the Australian Labor Party might once have had have been cast aside. Now they have none. They have been fully enslaved and indoctrinated by their US overlords!
They might squeak a little in protest if the decision is to extradite him, but that’s as much as we can expect from them.
It is all such a farce – Assange should be free and Biden plus cronies should be in prison for crimes against humanity. FREE ASSANGE!!