Julian Assange spent most of a decade in London in custody or self-imposed exile.
Photographer: Jack Taylor / Getty Images
Photographer: Jack Taylor / Getty Images
A judge in the UK will rule on Monday on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the US to face criminal charges after weeks of talks about a possible forgiveness of Donald Trump.
The decision by a London judge will follow after President Trump, whose administration filed the charges, issued an abundance of pardons to political allies. And lawyers say Trump’s chances of being better are better than a judge buying Assange’s arguments that his human rights will be trampled on in America.
“It is very rare for magistrates to refuse extradition requests from the United States,” said Anthony Hanratty, a lawyer at BDB Pitmans in London who specializes in extradition cases. “The suspicion exists that the US will meet the obligations regarding human rights and legal process.”
Assange, 49, spent most of a decade in London in custody or self-imposed exile. He initially sought refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 rather than being questioned in a Swedish sexual assault case, which was later dropped. When he was expelled from the embassy last year, he faced US charges in connection with the publication of WikiLeaks.
He, along with Chelsea Manning, the U.S. military’s intelligence analyst, is accused of containing classified documents from databases containing about 90,000 war-related activities in Afghanistan, 400,000 war reports in Iraq and 250,000 state department cables.
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At several extradition hearings earlier this year, delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, Assange’s lawyers focused their arguments on allegations that he could not receive a fair trial in the US.
But Assange praised Trump during the 2016 campaign when WikiLeaks released emails undermining Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. And it looks like Assange’s supporters have moved on from the extradition battle to focus on a possible remission.
Assange’s fiancée, Stella Moris, has brought Trump directly to Twitter over the past few months and appeared on Fox News.
“I beg you, please bring him home for Christmas,” she tweeted last month.
WikiLeaks officials declined to comment before Monday’s ruling, referring to Moris’ tweets. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.
The prospect of the president’s intervention came to light early last year when Assange’s lawyers said that a congressman and an associate of Trump met Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in the summer of 2017 to discusses a waiver if he reveals the source behind the leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee.
The pardon only increased in recent weeks after Trump issued pardons to more than a dozen people. The recipients were mostly political allies, including Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager, and Charles Kushner, the property developer and father of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Trump will face a pardon from his own government. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo – when he was CIA director – described WikiLeaks as a hostile force threatening the US
If you do not forgive, the extradition process in London is likely to continue, no matter how Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled on Monday. Hanratty said appeals could take 18 to 24 months, with possible challenges going to the British High Court and even the European Court of Human Rights.
(Updates with the first mention of a presidential pardon in the eleventh paragraph.)