U.S. authorities launched a new battle wednesday to get Julian Assange tried in the U.S., telling a British judge that if they agreed to extradite the WikiLeaks founder on espionage charges, he could serve his sentence in his native Australia if he was sentenced in the United States, the Associated Press reported in London.
In January, a lower court in the United Kingdom rejected a U.S. request to extradite Assange for wikileaks revealing secret U.S. military documents 10 years ago. District Judge Vanessa Barretzer ruled that Assange, who had been in hiding for years in the process of evading extradition and had been imprisoned in Britain, was likely to commit suicide if he was held in a harsh American prison.
A lawyer representing the U.S. government appealed the ruling in London High Court on Wednesday, denying that Assange's mental health was too fragile to withstand the pressure of the U.S. judicial system. Attorney James Lewis said Assange had "no history of severe and persistent mental illness" to the point where he was so ill that he couldn't help himself.
Lewis said U.S. authorities promised that Assange would not be held in ultra-high-security prisons or placed in strict isolation until trial. If convicted, he will be allowed to serve his sentence in Australia. Lewis said the assurances were "binding on the United States." (Compiler/Qiu Fang)
This profile photo taken on September 8, 2020 shows a car with the slogan "Do not extradite Assange" passing past two police officers outside the Houses of Parliament in London, England. Xinhua
Source: Reference News Network
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