Via Dominic Casciani, house and felony correspondent & Sam HancockBBC News20 February 2024, 02:15 GMTUpdated 1 hour agoImage supply, Elizabeth CookImage caption, The Wikileaks founder used to be now not found in courtroom on Tuesday – his attorneys stated he used to be unwellLawyers for Julian Assange have accused the United States of “state retaliation” over its bid to prosecute the Wikileaks founder. Mr Assange has been in Belmarsh – a UK jail – since 2019, and is sought after through the American government for disclosing secret army information in 2010 and 2011.At a two-day Top Courtroom listening to, which started on Tuesday, his felony workforce argued it will be in opposition to UK legislation handy him over.If an attraction is became down, Mr Assange might be extradited inside of weeks. Edward Fitzgerald KC, probably the most 52-year-old Australian’s attorneys, argued that the United States’s prosecution bid used to be “politically motivated”. “Mr Assange used to be exposing critical criminal activity” when he disclosed the paperwork in query, Mr Fitzgerald advised judges Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson.He advised them his shopper used to be “being prosecuted for attractive in [the] odd journalistic apply of acquiring and publishing categorized knowledge – knowledge this is each true and of obtrusive and necessary public passion.”Any other of Mr Assange’s attorneys, Mark Summers KC, stated the United States sought retribution for Mr Assange’s political beliefs – one of the bars to extradition from the United Kingdom, as set out through the Crown Prosecution Provider (CPS).”It is a paradigm instance of state retaliation for the expression of political opinion,” Mr Summers advised the courtroom in central London.The attorneys additionally argued that their shopper used to be at “an actual chance of additional extrajudicial movements … through the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] or different businesses” – a legally subtle approach of claiming he might be assassinated or topic to a couple hurt past a felony sanction after an even trial.Their allegation – now not but evidentially examined – is that the CIA plotted to kill Mr Assange all the way through the seven years he took safe haven inside of Ecuador’s London embassy, from 2012 to 2019. Mr Summers advised the judges that then-US President Donald Trump had requested for “detailed choices” of the right way to kill Mr Assange, who used to be now not found in courtroom on Tuesday because of illness. “Sketches have been even drawn up,” he stated, including there used to be proof of this “really breath-taking plan” – even though none has to this point been produced. Mr Summers stated the alleged plan “best fell aside when the United Kingdom government were not very prepared at the considered rendition, or a shootout, within the streets of London”.In written submissions, he and Mr Fitzgerald added: “The proof confirmed that the United States used to be ready to visit any lengths, together with misusing its personal felony justice device, to maintain impunity for US officers in admire of the torture/battle crimes dedicated in its notorious ‘battle on terror’, and to suppress the ones actors and courts prepared and ready to check out to carry the ones crimes to account.”Mr Assange used to be a type of goals.”Mr Assange’s mammoth felony struggle started in 2010, when Wikileaks disclosed massive numbers of confidential army information from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – together with pictures appearing a US helicopter gunning down civilians in Baghdad. He took safe haven in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, ahead of being arrested through the Metropolitan Police in 2019.America demanded his extradition from the United Kingdom that yr, pronouncing the disclosures endangered lives.Symbol caption, Dozens of Assange supporters confirmed up out of doors the Top Courtroom on TuesdayTwo years later, a British pass judgement on dominated that whilst the United States had proven it had a valid felony case in opposition to Mr Assange, he may now not be transferred as a result of he would possibly attempt to hurt himself.America later overturned that ruling after giving the United Kingdom new assurances about how Mr Assange can be handled within the match of extradition, together with the potential for spending any imaginable prison sentence in his local Australia. At this week’s listening to, in large part noticed as a last-ditch try, Mr Assange’s attorneys are inquiring for permission to problem the extradition order signed through the then UK house secretary Priti Patel in 2022. In the event that they fail to persuade judges there may be the rest incorrect with that order, Mr Assange should be extradited inside of 28 days – until he can persuade the Eu Courtroom of Human Rights to quickly prevent the flight with a so-called “Rule 39″ order.Nick Vamos, the previous head of extradition on the Crown Prosecution Provider, stated US Marshals may arrive in London inside of days if the Top Courtroom throws the case out.”There’s a very prime threshold for [the European Court of Human Rights to intervene], specifically that there’s ‘an impending chance of irreparable injury’ to his human rights, which in fact is among the arguments the Top Courtroom in London would have simply rejected,” he stated.Case ‘will decide if he lives or dies’Talking to the BBC on Monday, Stella Assange stated her husband would now not live on in a US prison – and described the case as politically-motivated.”This situation will decide if he lives or dies,” she stated.Out of doors the Top Courtroom on Tuesday, supporters of Mr Assange accrued, waving placards that includes the phrases “Loose Julian Assange”.Mrs Assange thanked them for his or her backing and, addressing them from a degree out of doors courtroom, stated: “We’ve two giant days forward. We do not know what to anticipate, however you might be right here since the international is observing.”Talking to the BBC, she described her husband because the “sufferer” of US “retaliation”, echoing the phrases of Mr Assange’s attorneys inside of.
