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US extradition hearing for WikiLeaks' Assange will take place in
February 2020 – UK court
RT,
14
June, 2019
WikiLeaks
co-founder Julian Assange will face a new, full US extradition
hearing in February that is expected to last five days, Westminster
Magistrates' Court in London has ruled.
The
hearing date was set after British Home Secretary Sajid Javid
revealed on Thursday that he had signed and certified the US
extradition order papers.
Assange's
lawyer, Mark Summers, said the case represents an “outrageous and
full-frontal assault on journalistic rights.''
Responding
to the new hearing date outside the court, another lawyer
representing Assange, Jennifer Robinson, said that Assange is "in
a healthcare ward in Belmarsh Prison due to his ill-health."
The
US Justice Department has filed 18 charges against the 47-year-old
Australian journalist, including one count of conspiring with Chelsea
Manning, the former intelligence analyst and whistleblower, to gain
access to the US Pentagon network.
Assange
is currently serving a 50-week prison sentence in the UK for jumping
bail in 2012. He was too ill to appear at the last hearing at
Westminster Magistrates' Court regarding the US request in May.
The
journalist spent over six years living under asylum in the Ecuadorian
Embassy in London, out of fear that Britain would hand him over to
the US. He was forcibly dragged out of the building in April after
the South American nation decided to evict him.
The
WikiLeaks co-founder’s health has been of particular concern to his
supporters. His lawyer, Per Samuelson, told reporters after visiting
Belmarsh at the end of May that “
Assange’s
health situation... was such that it was not possible to conduct a
normal conversation with him.”
The
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, who visited Assange in
Belmarsh, claimed that he showed clear signs of suffering "
cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects
of which can only be described as psychological torture."
Special to Consortium News
Assange
to Face 5-Day Extradition Hearing in February 2020
By Joe
Lauria
Special to Consortium News
14
June, 2019
A decision
on whether Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States to
face charges under the Espionage Act will not come until the end of
February 2020 at the earliest, the Westminster Magistrate’s Court
ruled on Friday.
Tristan
Kirk, the London Evening
Standard‘s
courts reporter, tweeted:
Kirk
said he argued his way into the court room after he and the rest of
the media had been barred by a security guard from entering the
public hearing that lasted under 30 minutes.
Reuters
reported:
As Ben Brandon, the lawyer representing the United States, ran through a summary of the accusations against him including that he had cracked a U.S. defence network password, Assange said: “I didn’t break any password whatsoever.”
The WikiLeaks publisher
told the court that “175 years of my life is effectively at
stake,” according
to Sky
News. He addressed the judge as Lady Arbuthnot, saying:
“WikiLeaks is
nothing but a publisher.” Mark Summers, a lawyer representing
Assange, told the court there are a “multiplicity of profound
issues” with the extradition case, Sky News reported.
“We
say it represents an outrageous and full-frontal assault on
journalistic rights,” he said.
Assange
spoke to the court via video link from Belmarsh prison where he is
serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail on a Swedish sexual
assault investigation. Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian
embassy in London in June 2012 to avoid onward extradition from
Sweden to the United States. He was arrested on April 11 when Ecuador
allowed British police to enter the embassy.
The
British home secretary signed the extradition request from the U.S.
on Wednesday. Sajiid Javid said Thursday:
“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.”
Both
sides in the extradition battle will now have about eight months to
prepare their case.
Assange’s
Belmarsh sentence will end at the end of March 2020, meaning he will
remain in the maximum security prison until the extradition hearing.
The #Assange case is about shutting down investigative journalism and public inquiry, says John Pilger, outside the Westminster Magistrates Court youtube.com/watch?v=jrjVOe…
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