Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom announced it will not rule on Julian Assange’s appeal on his extradition to the United States.
Stating the application “didn’t raise an arguable point of law,” the court left in place a ruling from December that Assange is eligible for extradition after assurances from the US that he would be treated humanely.
Assange, an Australian, is the founder of the WikiLeaks website which published classified US military documents obtained by Chelsea Manning. He faces criminal charges in the US for unlawfully helping Manning obtain the documents. Assange’s defense has been he was only acting in the role of a journalist.
Since 2019, Assange has been held at Belmarsh Prison in London. Prior to that, he stayed seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden on sexual assault charges which were eventually dropped.
The extradition is now in the hands of UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, and Assange’s legal team has four weeks to submit objections.
