LONDON: Promises by the US government that the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange will not be subject to a hard prison condition if he is extradited to face American justice is not enough to overcome fears about his fragile mental health and lawyers who defend him argue Thursday.
Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said during a two-day hearing in the British High Court that Australia was too sick extradited to the United States to face the trial on the allegations of espionage.
The United States government tried to reverse the previous decision by a lower Brindle court that refused US requests to extradite Assange for the publication of Wikileaks from the last secret American military document.
Vanessa Baritser District Judge decided that Assange was likely to commit suicide if it was held under the condition of a hard US prison.
On Wednesday, a lawyer for the US government said that the American authorities had promised that Assange would not be held before the court in the prison “supermax” of security, or experienced strict insulation conditions.
He also said that if punished, Assange will be allowed to serve his sentence in Australia, his home country.
But Fitzgerald argues that US guarantees are “warning, unclear, or ineffective.” They did not eliminate the risk of assange detained in extreme isolation in the US in the long run, he said, and the risk of assange killing himself was still great if he was extradited.
“It is very reasonable to find that oppressive to extradite irregular people mentally because his extradition tends to lead to his death,” he said.
He added that the judge must use their strength to “protect people from extradition to a foreign country where we do not have control of what will be done for them.” In written submission, Fitzgerald also said that the assurance that Assange could be transferred to an Australian prison if punished was “meaningless.” Australia has not indicated its approval, and the process can take a decade or more, he argues.
A prosecutor has charged Assange at 17 espionage costs and one charge of computer abuse for the publication of Wikileaks from thousands of military and diplomatic documents leaking.
The cost brought a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison, although lawyers for the US government said Wednesday that the punishment could be much shorter.
Assange, 50, is currently being held at the London High Security Belmarsh Prison.
He did not attend the Thursday trial, even though on Wednesday he appeared with a video link at times.
The trial was the latest in the long-term battle Assange to fight extradition to the US American prosecutor said Assange was illegally helping A.S.
Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning stole secret diplomatic cables and military files which were later published by Wikileaks.
Assange’s lawyer argues that he acts as a journalist and has the right to the first amendment of speech protection to publish documents that expose military errors A.S.
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Supporters also argue that politically motivated prosecution cases.
About 80 supporters performed noisy rally outside the London court before hearing, playing music and singing “Free Julian Assange!” Jeremy Corbyn, a former leader of the British Opposition Labor Party, said outside the court that Assange had said the truth about Afghanistan and Iraq, and that he should not be flown to the US “under any circumstances.” “He did not commit a crime and he was in maximum security prison …
If he moved to the United States, he might, because of his mental health condition, took his own life,” Corbyn told reporters.
“In different countries it will be praised as a whistleblower who tells the truth about the dangers we face, the danger of the whole world facing.” Hearing two days before two judges, including the head of the most senior British Judge Judge Ian Burbett, ended Thursday but the verdict was not expected for weeks.
The loser side can try to beg for the British Supreme Court.
Assange has been held in prison with high security since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping guarantees during separate legal battles.
Previously he spent seven years at the Embassy of the London Ecuador, where he sought asylum in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face accusations of rape and sexual violence.
Sweden dropped the investigation of sex crimes in November 2019 because so much time had passed.
The judge who blocked extradition in January ordered that he had to remain in detention during the US appeal.