Judge stops Julian Assange being extradited

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be a free man after a British judge ruled that he cannot be extradited to the US because of the risk he might kill himself in prison.

 

His 11-year battle against extradition finally appeared to end yesterday after District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled the 49-year-old should not be sent to the US by "reason of mental health".

 

Ms Baraitser concluded that there was a "substantial" risk of suicide if Mr Assange was handed over to the US authorities, despite the "strong public interest" in abiding by treaty obligations between the UK and the US.

 

In a 132-page ruling, she drew on expert evidence from five psychiatrists who diagnosed him with depression, traits of autism, and suicidal thoughts. The judge found that there would be a "real risk" of him being detained in a high-security US prison alongside the "most violent, predatory and escape-prone prisoners" should she grant extradition.

 

She said: "I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr Assange's mental health would deteriorate, causing him to commit suicide with the single-minded determination of his autism spectrum disorder. I find the mental condition of Mr Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him."

 

Assange is wanted in the US for publishing thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011 relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

 

Outlining the court's decision, Ms Baraitser cited the 2019 suicide of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Centre. Mr Assange, who is wanted on 18 charges of espionage, would likely have gone to ADX Florence, a maximum security jail in Colorado where there were "two or three" suicide attempts in 2017, a report produced by the defence stated.

 

The court heard from numerous experts, including emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at King's College London, Michael Kopelman, who said Mr Assange suffered a recurrent depressive disorder. He had reported suicidal ideas to Prof Kopelman, telling him that he had been thinking about suicide "hundreds of times a day" and had a "constant desire" to self-harm.

 

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser does not shy away from ordering the extradition of high-profile suspects. Following his arrest at Heathrow in January 2018 on a European arrest warrant, she sent businessman Alexandre Djouhri back to France over a Libyan cash scandal. She also sent 34-year-old British-Iraqi Rekawt Kayani to France in 2016 after he was accused of smuggling migrants into the UK.

 

Her ruling on Mr Assange on the grounds of his mental health follows similar decisions on the alleged British hackers Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love. The UK refused the extradition of McKinnon in 2012 and Love in 2018 to face hacking charges in the US on the grounds that they had Asperger syndrome and depression – conditions that would have put them at risk of suicide.

 

The US government said it would appeal against the decision.

 

 

Mandy Peters Solicitors 

Lewisham