The appeal hearing on the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States ended on Thursday in the High Court in London.

At the beginning of the year, a London court ruled not to extradite the mentally ailing Australian who was incarcerated in London, stating the risk that he could commit suicide in an American maximum security prison.

Washington wants Assange, who had published secret documents of the Pentagon and the State Department on his digital platform, a trial based on the espionage law.

Jochen Buchsteiner

Political correspondent in London.

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At the beginning of the hearing, US government lawyers had doubted that if Assange were extradited, his life would be in danger.

They invoked a guarantee from the American government that those extradited would only be expected to go to trial in the course of which they would not be detained under the strictest security conditions.

The authorities would also ensure that Assange received "whatever clinical and psychological treatment" the prison doctors deem advisable.

If convicted, he could apply to serve the sentence in his native Australia;

that would be supported by Washington.

One of the lawyers spoke of "binding representations".

"Speechless" about Assange's health

This was questioned by an Assange lawyer on Thursday. Even if the guarantee were to work, that did not mean that his mandate was not suicidal. People can find ways to kill themselves if they want to, he said. In particular, US government attorneys attacked a psychiatric report that the district court had used as a basis for its judgment. This was "misleading" because the fatherhood of Assange was concealed, which would have put his risk of suicide in a different light. Assange had two children with his girlfriend and former lawyer, Stella Moris, during his seven-year stay at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. His lawyer saidthis information would not have changed the overall assessment and was only withheld to protect Moris' identity. In this connection he mentioned a report by Yahoo News that the American government was considering kidnapping and even killing Assange from the embassy. The news platform relied on CIA employees.

Before the hearing, Moris was “speechless” about her partner's poor health and stressed the importance of the Yahoo report. "This is a game changer in this appeal process because it shows the true character, the true origin and the true criminality of the American actions against Julian," she said in London. Not only Assange's friends and lawyers see the Wikileaks founder as a victim of political justice. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, recently spoke of international "authority collusion".

The Swedish public prosecutor's office started an investigation into Assange for rape in 2010, which was later closed. Because he feared extradition to the United States in the event of a testimony in Sweden, he sought refuge in the London embassy of Ecuador and was granted asylum. After his arrest in 2019, he was in custody for violating bail conditions and for requesting extradition. If the High Court upholds Washington's motion and overturns the judgment, the case would be referred back to the District Court and will likely be decided by the Supreme Court in London. On the other hand, if the High Court confirmed the decision of the first instance, the Supreme Court could, in the opinion of Assange's lawyers, signal that it will not allow any further appeal proceedings.Then Assange could soon be released.