Assange to Face 5-Day Extradition Hearing in February 2020
June 14, 2019
Decision on Assange's fate will not come for at least another eight months.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
A decision on whether Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States
to face charges under the Espionage Act will not come until the end of
February 2020 at the earliest, the Westminster Magistrate's Court ruled on
Friday.
Tristan Kirk, the London Evening Standard's courts reporter, tweeted:
Kirk said he argued his way into the court room after he and the rest of the
media had been barred by a security guard from entering the public hearing
that lasted under 30 minutes.
Reuters reported:
As Ben Brandon, the lawyer representing the United States, ran through a
summary of the accusations against him including that he had cracked a U.S.
defence network password, Assange said: "I didn't break any password
whatsoever."
The WikiLeaks publisher told the court that "175 years of my life is
effectively at stake," according to Sky News. He addressed the judge as Lady
Arbuthnot, saying: "WikiLeaks is nothing but a publisher." Mark Summers, a
lawyer representing Assange, told the court there are a "multiplicity of
profound issues" with the extradition case, Sky News reported.
"We say it represents an outrageous and full-frontal assault on journalistic
rights," he said.
Assange spoke to the court via video link from Belmarsh prison where he is
serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail on a Swedish sexual assault
investigation. Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in
June 2012 to avoid onward extradition from Sweden to the United States. He
was arrested on April 11 when Ecuador allowed British police to enter the
embassy.
The British home secretary signed the extradition request from the U.S. on
Wednesday. Sajiid Javid said Thursday: "I want to see justice done at all
times and we've got a legitimate extradition request, so I've signed it, but
the final decision is now with the courts."
Both sides in the extradition battle will now have about eight months to
prepare their case.
Assange's Belmarsh sentence will end at the end of March 2020, meaning he
will remain in the maximum security prison until the extradition hearing.
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