Julian Assange has always polarised opinion. Now, his long-running saga to avoid extradition to the US has triggered a renewed sense of pity over his plight.
US politics and law seem at cross purposes over how to deal with the Australian publisher of leaked documents.
Stella Assange, wife of Julian Assange, speaks beside a poster of her husband at London’s Royal Courts of Justice in February.Credit: AP
Only last week US President Joe Biden raised expectations when he said he was “considering” Australia’s request for his administration to end the pursuit of Assange. Then, this week, Assange’s bid to avoid being taken to America suffered a setback when lawyers for the US provided the assurances about his treatment – including that he will not face the death penalty – demanded by the London court where the Australian is challenging his extradition.
On May 20, lawyers for the US and Assange will return to the Royal Courts of Justice, on The Strand, to continue making representations, before a final decision is made.
Come June, Assange will have spent 12 years either in jail or holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He fought extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges – the investigation was dropped in 2019 – and then extradition to the US for publishing military and diplomatic cables.
His asylum was withdrawn in 2019 and he was jailed for breaching bail in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he languishes still. The US subsequently charged him with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and a separate hacking-related charge and is still seeking his extradition.
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The charges Assange is facing relate to material published by WikiLeaks in 2010, which detailed, among other things, war crimes committed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. American prosecutors allege that Assange, 52, encouraged and helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published, putting lives at risk.
Assange’s attempts to avoid the US have become an onerous singular burden. He has spent more time locked away, both voluntarily and involuntarily, than Manning, who served a seven-year sentence. Assange fathered two children while in the embassy, and married. In late 2021, his wife said he had suffered an apparent mini-stroke.