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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68662881
The US must provide assurances that Julian Assange will not receive the death penalty if convicted, before a UK court rules on whether he can appeal against his extradition.
The court has adjourned its decision by three weeks to give the US government time to comply.
US authorities say the Wikileaks founder endangered lives by publishing thousands of classified documents.
His lawyers have argued that the case is form of "state retaliation".
In a High Court judgment on Tuesday, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson said that Mr Assange would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds, unless assurances were given by the United States.
These assurances are that the 52-year-old would be protected by and allowed to rely on the First Amendment - which protects freedom of speech in the US; that he would not be "prejudiced at trial" due to his nationality; and that he would not face the death penalty if he is convicted.
Judges have given the US authorities three weeks to make those assurances, with a final hearing potentially taking place on 20 May.
"If assurances are not given then we will grant leave to appeal without a further hearing," said Dame Victoria in the court's ruling.
"If assurances are given then we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal."
See also: Julian Assange faces further wait over extradition ruling
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Thursday March 28 2024, @10:11AM (5 children)
If he hadn't skipped bail and spent 8 years in hiding pissing off his hosts, he'd have been out LONG ago.
Literally we are now at the point where what SHOULD have happened is now starting to happen.
Everything else in-between was literally evasion of UK justice and court orders. We don't really care about the US side - nothing's going to happen to him and we can't release anyone to the US without similar requirements anyway, our law says so - but his time in the embassy / jail (a significant portion of his life now) were because he thumbed his nose at the judiciary and courts. This is literally "finding out" after his initial... you know what.
And starting NOW exactly what was always going to happen to him is going to happen. Which will involve a trial, possibly a conviction, possibly a prison sentence, then being deported back to Australia and probably never being allowed into another country ever again.
This is literally no different to someone who was going down for, say, 5 years because of burglary but decided to try to flee skip, go on the run, go into hiding, skip bail, etc. etc. etc. All he's done is added a long jail sentence and years on the run to whatever was going to happen anyway.
And personally, I think he's done a huge disservice to all genuine whistleblowers the world over - because of him, whistleblowers have seen three people, Manning, Snowden and Assange, all whistleblow SO BADLY that they were imprisoned, exiled, in hiding, held in jail or at the behest of the Russian authorities. Yet Katherine Gun, who did things properly, had no such problems even when whistleblowing on the damn GCHQ, one of the most secretive military organisations in the entire world. If they had whistleblown like she did, and made sure that it was done properly (like almost all actual, real, proper journalists have to day in, day out to avoid the same fates as Assange), they'd all be free men and people would have listened to what they had to say. Instead they've all ruined their entire lives - and potentially killed others - because they wanted the whistleblowing to be about them, and become famous "journalists" because of it, and did not understand how to whistleblow at all.
Assange is a product of his own creation.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday March 28 2024, @11:45PM (4 children)
This attempted extradition to the US shows Assange's foresight in not doing that. Sorry, I don't buy that he'd be out LONG ago. If he were still alive, he'd still be rotting is my take.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday March 29 2024, @12:24PM (3 children)
"This attempted extradition to the US shows Assange's foresight in not doing that."
It shows that he thinks he can run away from the US, and instead hid in an allied country with an extradition agreement. He's a twat.
It also shows no foresight - HE WAS WANTED BY THE US. Otherwise none of this would have happened. You can't leak or even deal in US classified military information (of ANY kind), get caught doing so, and expect not to have to answer to them. It's insane to think so.
All he's done is imprisoned himself because he was SO TERRIBLE at actually evading the US he thought that he could hide in the UK and then also thumb his nose at UK courts and skip UK court bail and hide out in a UK-based embassy.
If he had half a brain and seriously thought he was at risk of death or lifetime imprisonment, he'd literally have been better hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. Like the world hide-and-seek-from-the-US champion did for, what? 10+ years?
Instead he wanted publicity. He got it. And he's paying the price for it.
People with a genuine fear for their life or of lifelong "unjust" imprisonment in the US that they want to evade don't preach from balconies in London.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 30 2024, @06:36AM (2 children)
Extradition occurs under rules. It has to be a crime in the allied country and not break any laws in that country as well. This bit about the death penalty is actually part of those restrictions.
Unless perhaps they have something more important to them than their life at stake.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday April 01 2024, @11:04PM (1 child)
And everything he's accused of is illegal in the UK too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 02 2024, @12:34AM
Hence why extradition is possible in the first place.