LONDON: Two UK judges on Tuesday delayed a ruling on whether to grant WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a last-ditch appeal against extradition to the US, giving Washington three weeks to provide “assurances” in the case.
The United States wants the 52-year-old Australian national to face trial there for WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic and military files in 2010 relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Following two days of evidence in February, the judges in the UK said Assange had ‘a real prospect of success’ on three of his nine grounds of appeal, according to Western media.
Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson gave the US three weeks to provide fresh assurances over concerns he will be prejudiced at trial because he is not an American national and that he could face the death penalty if convicted.
Before making a final judgment on the application for leave to appeal, we will give the respondent an opportunity to give assurances,’ the judges wrote in their 66-page ruling.
The judges added that if assurances are not given they will grant leave to appeal without a further hearing.
Julian Assange misses court hearing
Assange, who has been held at a high-security jail in London on remand since 2019, was not in court for the latest ruling, which was released online.
He was absent from court on both days last days and did not follow the proceedings via video due to illness, his counsel said at the time.
If Wikileaks’ founder loses the appeal bid, he will have exhausted all appeals in Britain and will be set to enter the extradition process.
However, his legal team has previously said they will ask the European courts to intervene and that they would be given fourteen days to do so.
The US indicted Assange multiple times between 2018 and 2020 but US President Joe Biden has faced persistent domestic and global pressure to drop the case filed under his predecessor Donald Trump.
