On Contact: Assange Can Appeal UK Supreme Court

The British High Court of England and Wales on Monday said it would allow the imprisoned publisher of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, to, in essence, appeal a ruling that would have seen him extradited to the United States where he faces a possible 175 years in prison for the publication of classified documents and videos.

The High Court technically refused to allow an appeal to the Supreme Court, but, in a legal loophole, it left it up to that court to determine whether it will grant permission to consider one legal issue.

“We certify a single point of law … in what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state which were not before the court of first instance in extradition proceedings,” the High Court said in an appearance that lasted less than a minute.

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Assange Hearing Day

it is customary that the High Court refuses leave to appeal; with the certification of public interest, Julian can now appeal direct to the Supreme Court which will decide whether or not to take the case. The refusal of leave by the High Court is purely a show of deference to the Supreme Court, which decides itself what it will take. The lawyers put this as “the Supreme Court dines a la carte”.

Now some of the appeal points which the High Court refused to certify as arguable and of general public interest, were important. One point was that the diplomatic assurances by the United States promised not to engage in certain illegal practices amounting to torture, but made that assurance conditional on Assange’s future behavior.

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British High Court Opens Door For Assange To Appeal To Supreme Court

London – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prevailed in his effort to obtain certification from the British High Court of Justice, which would allow him to appeal their prior decision to the Supreme Court.

Under the law, the court must determine that the request for an appeal involves a “point of law” that is of “public importance.”

Journalist Mohamed Elmaazi, who was in the courtroom to cover the very brief proceedings, reported that the High Court certified the following point of law: “in what circumstances can an appellate court receive [diplomatic] assurances which were not before the court of first instance in extradition proceedings.”

Although the High Court maintained it had settled the question, they acknowledged the Supreme Court had not previously considered the question.

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Assange To UK Court: Certify Three Points To Appeal Supreme Court

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has requested the U.K. High Court of Justice to approve three points of law of general public importance, as at least one certified point is necessary for the Supreme Court to hear Assange’s appeal against extradition to the United States, his fiancee Stella Moris said on Thursday.

For the country’s Supreme Court to hear the case of an appeal, it must be first recognized that the appeal concerns legal matters that are important to the larger public.

“Julian Assange has asked the High Court to certify three points of law of general public importance. The Supreme Court cannot hear his appeal unless the High Court agrees to certify at least one of them. The High Court could notify its decision about certification at any moment,” Moris tweeted.

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Thousands Sign Petition Supporting Assange Release

Washington, DC – Led by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), more than 26 antiwar groups and 2,500 individual peace and justice advocates have cosponsored a statement calling for the immediate release of publisher Julian Assange and commending him for his contributions toward global peace.

Assange is currently fighting extradition to the United States after the Trump administration indicted him on unprecedented Espionage Act charges. His indictment marked the first time in U.S. history that a journalist has been charged for publishing truthful information. 

Since being removed from Ecuador’s London embassy after a new Ecuadorian administration bowed to U.S. pressure to withdraw his asylum, Assange has been held for more than 1,000 days in Belmarsh Prison while his extradition case is being heard through UK courts.

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Peace And Justice Organizations Call For Freedom For Julian Assange

Imprisoned Wikileaks founder, journalist and free speech champion Julian Assange today faces life imprisonment for telling the truth about U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the U.S. torture base in Guantanamo Bay.

Assange faces charges under the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act. Prosecution under that WWI anti-democratic law placed thousands of antiwar activists in prison for exercising their free speech right to protest WWI.

Ironically, the Dec 19, 2021 New York Times front-page two-part series entitled, Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes, follows in Assange’s footsteps in reporting U.S. war crimes, yet The Times staff writers remain free.

Some 100 Times reporters evaluated Pentagon confidential document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

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300 Doctors Implore Australia To Bring Assange Home

The letter begins by commending Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce for his recent statements calling for the U.S. extradition request against Julian Assange to be dropped. It continues:

“We are concerned that Mr. Assange’s apparent mini stroke [reported in the Daily Mail on 11 December] may be the tip of a medical iceberg. Indeed his symptoms suggest as much. It is therefore imperative that Mr. Assange be released from prison, where his health will otherwise continue to deteriorate and where his complex medical needs cannot be met.” Continued incarceration, the doctors warn, will place Julian Assange’s life at risk.

In appendices to the letter, the doctors have released all former correspondence with the Australian Government – including previously unpublished material – in which they warned of cardiovascular pathology, such as that reported in the Daily Mail.

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Freeing Julian Assange

The legal systems in the United Kingdom and the United States will not spare WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The only way this political case will end is if U.S. officials conclude the cost is no longer worth the benefit of making an example out of him. Support for prosecuting Assange comes from within U.S. intelligence agencies (particularly the C.I.A.), the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Defense Department, the national security division of the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia, and several influential senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress. On December 10, the British High Court of Justice granted the U.S. government’s appeal in the extradition case against Assange and significantly increased the likelihood that he will one day be transported to the U.S. for an unprecedented trial involving charges under the Espionage Act.

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Why We Must Defend Julian Assange

December 10 is International Human Rights Day. It is always a sham holiday for the United States, which locks up its own people at rates exceeding those of every other country, and routinely makes war against the rest of the world. In 2021 the date was treated as even more of a mockery than in the past. Joe Biden convened a bizarre democracy summit, wherein he declared other nations good or bad based on whether they go along with the dictates of the U.S. empire. Although it was in London where the U.S. behaved in a particularly shameful manner, working with the United Kingdom to secure the right to extradite Julian Assange.

In 2018 Assange was indicted in the Eastern District Court of Virginia, a hanging court where acquittals are rare.

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Assange Extradition, US Appeal Result

On Thursday afternoon I was in Edinburgh High Court to get back my passport, which had been confiscated during my own court proceedings avowedly to stop me going to Spain to testify in the trial of David Morales of UC Global. He stands accused by whistleblowers in his own company of spying on Julian Assange, his lawyers and other associates (including myself), on behalf of the CIA, and in engaging with them on plans to kidnap or assassinate Assange.

Having got my passport, I was wandering down the Canongate to buy a new sporran. I fear that I only wear my kilt on occasions where I end up not at all sober, and invariably spend the next morning wondering what on earth happened to my tie, left hose, mobile phone etc. The loss of a sporran is a particularly expensive experience.

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On Contact: Assange Can Be Extradited, Says Court

On Friday, the British High Court in London overturned an earlier lower court decision blocking the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States. The ruling sends the case back to the Magistrate’s Court with instructions to allow the extradition to be approved or denied by British Home Secretary Priti Patel.

The ruling, which included a decision to continue to hold Assange in a high security prison, is a severe blow to the Wikileaks co-founder’s efforts to prevent his extradition to the United States to face charges under the Espionage Act.

The extradition is now in the hands of Patel, unless Assange’s lawyers, as expected, file an appeal to the UK Supreme Court.

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Assange Plans To Appeal High Court Decision Backing Extradition

Attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plan to appeal to the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom after the country’s appeals court overturned a decision that blocked the extradition of Assange to the United States.

The High Court of Justice was “satisfied” with diplomatic assurances offered by the U.S. government related to how Assange would be treated in jail or prison, and they stated, “There is no reason why this court should not accept the assurances as meaning what they say.”

“There is no basis for assuming that the U.S.A. has not given the assurances in good faith,” the High Court also insisted.More significantly, the High Court remitted the case back to the district court and instructed a district judge at this level to send the request to the Secretary of State in the Home Department for extradition.

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A Judicial Kidnapping

Miscarriage of justice is an inadequate term in these circumstances. It took the bewigged courtiers of Britain’s ancient regime just nine minutes on Friday to uphold an American appeal against a District Court judge’s acceptance in January of a cataract of evidence that hell on earth awaited Assange across the Atlantic: a hell in which, it was expertly predicted, he would find a way to take his own life.

Volumes of witness by people of distinction, who examined and studied Julian and diagnosed his autism and his Asperger’s Syndrome and revealed that he had already come within an ace of killing himself at Belmarsh prison, Britain’s very own hell, were ignored.

The recent confession of a crucial F.B.I. informant and prosecution stooge, a fraudster and serial liar, that he had fabricated his evidence against Julian was ignored.

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Assange Loses, High Court Allows US Appeal; Quashes Assange’s Discharge

The High Court in London on Friday ruled in the U.S. appeal against a lower court decision not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange by sending the case back to Magistrate’s Court with instructions to send the case to the secretary of state to decide on Assange’s extradition.

The matter is now in the hands of Dominic Raab, secretary of state for justice, unless Assange’s lawyers appeal the decision to the U.K. Supreme Court, which they have said they will do. If extradited, Assange faces up to 175 years in prison on charges under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange is the first journalist to be charged with espionage for obtaining and publishing state secrets.

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How Can They Accept Extradition To A Country That Plotted To Kill Julian?

I want to emphasize that the High Court accepted all the medical evidence and the conclusions of the magistrate that if Julian is extradited and placed under extreme conditions of isolation it will drive him to take his own life. That extradition is oppressive.

Yet the High Court decided against Julian on this occasion on the basis of political assurances—non-assurances—that the US has given to the UK government. I say non-assurances. Amnesty International says non-assurances. Amnesty International has analyzed these assurances and has said that they are inherently unreliable. They incorporate the possibility of breaking those assurances in their very wording.

Today, it’s been almost a year since I stood outside court with our victory of the blocking of the extradition.

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