By The opinion
The High Court of London authorized Julian Assange to present a new appeal against his extradition to the United States, which claims him for 18 crimes of espionage and computer intrusion for the revelations on his WikiLeaks portal.
Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson specifically authorized appeal in another future hearing against two of the three guarantees offered by the United States regarding the treatment he would receive if he were handed over to stand trial in that country.
The court understood that the defense arguments that Assange will be discriminated against due to his non-US nationality deserve to be subjected to an appeal trial since he is not assured that he can rely on the First Amendment of the country’s Constitution, which protects the freedom of expression.
In a diplomatic note of “assurances” in March, The United States Government said that the founder of WikiLeaks may “try to raise” the First Amendment as a defensebut he clarified that it will be up to the US Justice Department to determine whether it applies or not.
Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, recalled this Monday that the US prosecutor in the case, Gordon Kromberg, had already warned that he could use as an argument that “foreign citizens do not have the right to protection under the First Amendment, at least as far as “which refers to defense information.”
The defense team will therefore be able to appeal to the guarantees provided by Washington in the sense that it will not be discriminated against due to its nationality and that it will be able to try to rely on the First Amendment.
The third guarantee was accepted and will not be appealedin which the US Government promised not to apply the death penalty.
This Monday’s hearing before Sharp and Johnson was for them to decide if they accepted the US guarantees and therefore authorized the extradition or if, on the other hand, they rejected them totally or partially and allowed Assange another appeal, which finally has happened.
The United States sues the computer programmer for disseminating classified information in 2010 and 2011which exposed human rights violations by the US military in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The computer programmer, who is in preventive detention in a high-security prison in London, did not attend the trial before the Superior Court for health reasons, although his wife, Stella Assange, was present.
With information from EFE.
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