US wins appeal against UK ruling that blocked Julian Assange’s extradition

Enlarge / Supporters of Julian Assange outside the Royal Courts of Justice on December 10, 2021, in London, England. (credit: Getty Images | Chris Ratcliffe )

A UK court ruling today brought the US government one step closer to securing the extradition of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who faces criminal charges for his alleged role in helping Chelsea Manning steal classified information from the US Department of Defense. The ruling was issued today by the UK's High Court of Justice in London.

Today's decision came in response to the United States' appeal of a January 2021 district judge's ruling that rejected the extradition request on the grounds that Assange would be at greater risk of suicide in the American prison system. The district judge's ruling criticized US prison conditions and noted that "Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide at the MCC jail in August 2019" and Chelsea Manning "was hospitalized after an attempt to commit suicide at the ADC jail [William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria, Virginia] in 2020."

In February, the US offered several assurances to the UK about how Assange will be treated after extradition. The High Court was satisfied that these assurances "[e]xclude the possibility of Mr. Assange being made subject to 'special administrative measures' or held at the 'ADX' facility (a maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, in the US), either pretrial or after any conviction, unless, after entry of the assurances, he commits any future act which renders him liable to such conditions of detention," according to the court's summary of today's ruling.

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