It's happening: UK Home Secretary approves extradition request for Assange to stand trial in the USA on charges of 'spying'

Matthew Weaver and Owen Bowcott
The Guardian
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 17:02 UTC

© Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van.

Home secretary opens way for court to consider whether Assange should be sent to US

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has revealed he has signed a request for Julian Assange to be extradited to the US where he faces charges of computer hacking.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday, Javid said: "He's rightly behind bars. There's an extradition request from the US that is before the courts tomorrow but yesterday I signed the extradition order and certified it and that will be going in front of the courts tomorrow."

Javid's decision opens the way to the court sending the WikiLeaks founder to the US. Assange faces an 18-count indictment, issued by the US Department of Justice, that includes charges under the Espionage Act. He is accused of soliciting and publishing classified information and conspiring to hack into a government computer.

© Reuters

UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid

Javid said: "It is a decision ultimately for the courts, but there is a very important part of it for the home secretary and 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."

The 47-year-old Australian was too ill to appear last month at a hearing at Westminster magistrates court in relation to the US request. The hearing has been rescheduled for Friday, and depending on Assange's condition, may take place at Belmarsh prison where he is being held.

Javid's decision follows news last week that an attempt to extradite Assange to Sweden had had a setback after a court in Uppsala said he did not need to be detained.

Comment: Swedish court rejects detention in absentia for Assange, won't request extradition from Britain

The ruling by the district court prevented Swedish prosecutors from applying immediately for an extradition warrant for Assange to face an allegation of rape dating back to 2010. Assange denies the accusation.

Assange is serving a 50-week sentence in Britain for skipping bail after he spent seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London attempting to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Swedish prosecutors dropped their rape investigation in 2017 but reopened it after Ecuador rescinded its offer of asylum to Assange in April this year and allowed British police to arrest him.

Comment: UK prosecutors pressured Sweden not to drop Assange extradition in 2013

Thomas Garner, an extradition lawyer at Gherson Solicitors, said Javid's certification of the request was "an important though merely procedural step" to start the extradition process.

"I would expect the court to set a preliminary timetable for the extradition process tomorrow," he said. "It is likely to be many months before any hearing at the magistrates court and of course either side may then seek to appeal that decision in due course. Despite this, the Swedish authorities will be monitoring the process carefully as the further down the line the US proceedings get the harder it might become for the home secretary to give precedence to any competing request."

Comment: George Galloway nails it:

Julian Assange's extradition to the US would be a deathblow for all truth seekers, George Galloway told RT, warning that anyone who fails to support Assange will one day share the same fate as the persecuted Wikileaks co-founder.

Galloway, a former MP who has campaigned tirelessly for Assange's freedom, quipped that the "dark" episode shows that Theresa May's "zombie" government was "not content with all the other disasters for which it's responsible."

He insisted that Assange's supporters would "never give up" the fight to stop his extradition to the US and secure his safe release from UK custody.

Failing to support Assange now will have disastrous consequences for journalism and all who profess to hold progressive values, Galloway warned. He expressed particular discontent with those who would have ordinarily protested Assange's treatment at the hands of the UK authorities, but remained silent because the Wikileaks co-founder was accused of sexual misconduct - what Galloway decried as a politically-motivated smear.

The liberals and the progressives, as they describe themselves, they will one day be a victim of this tyranny themselves, that is unless they eventually give up any pretense of actually being liberals and actually being progressives.

Asked about what would happen if Assange is ultimately extradited, Galloway said that the consequences for allowing such an injustice would be devastating.

"Every truth seeker will go down if Julian goes down."