The High Court in London ruled on May 20 that Julian Assange may appeal a ruling to extradite him to the United States on three grounds, according to The Guardian. The first issue is that Assange should be guaranteed the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment rights of free speech. However, Assange’s barrister points out that the U.S.courts have so far refused to guarantee him the right of free speech, just the right to raise the issue of free speech.
The second ground of appeal is the question of whether his legal treatment in U.S. courts would comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The third issue is whether he, as a foreigner would have the same rights in a U.S. court as a U.S. citizen. The Assange legal team has requested answers from U.S. prosecutors, but said the response has been “deafening silence.”
Assange, 52, is in bad health at the maximum security MP Prison Belmarsh. He has been held in a maximum security prison for five years now, despite the fact he has not been charges, and faces no charges in the United Kingdom itself.
He faces a maximum of 175 years in U.S. prison for 17 counts of espionage for publishing classified documents on his WikiLeaks website. His wife, Stella Assange spoke to the press outside the court saying that President Biden was “running out of time” to do the right thing and drop the case against her husband altogether.
