Julian Assange won, but he also lost when two British judges ruled he could further contest his extradition to the United States in a full appeal to the High Court.
Monday’s decision by the British legal system means the WikiLeaks founder is not sitting handcuffed on the floor of an American military plane enroute to a high security prison in Virginia to face a US espionage trial but it does mean his incarceration in a London prison, Belmarsh continues.
Assange’s wife Stella believes America’s ongoing attempted prosecution of her husband is “detention by stealth” and that the persistent legal battles are putting unacceptable pressure on his health. She called for a political solution and that US president Joe Biden, should distance his administration from this “shameful” act and release him immediately.
In the flush of this latest court battle - which has been going on since the original Westminster judge ruled in January 2021 that Assange shouldn’t be extradited because of the risk of suicide - Mrs Assange then went further.
She has called for compensation for her husband’s 12 years of detention, and that he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Other supporters gleefully shouted how the British High Court had told the Americans “we just don’t believe you’’.
The WikiLeaks supporters are piling on political pressure, but the reality is the American intelligence community is still furious that hundreds of thousands of war logs and secret documents, with source names, were loaded online through Assange’s alleged actions back in 2010.
Whether this is journalism or not is still being hotly debated. Assange’s critics also point to his unwillingness to face the Americans resulted in his six year self detention in the Ecuador Embassy from 2012 to 2018. His alleged accomplice, US army officer Chelsea Manning didn’t receive any First Amendment protections because of the security nature of violating the Espionage Act, but her 35 year sentence was commuted to seven years - much shorter than Assange’s confinement to date tallying more than 12 years.
While in prison Assange walks daily laps of his cell replicating sections of the 1000km Camino Santiago route. It appears, without any presidential intervention, that his mindful meanderings across Spain’s mountains to the coast have some way to go.
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