[News:] U.S. Sends U.K. Fresh Assurances on Assange

(London, U.K.) The United States government, via its London embassy, provided the U.K. with fresh diplomatic assurances in the case of Julian Assange on Tuesday.

Assange, who last week marked five years of incarceration at H.M.P. Belmarsh, has been in the sights of U.S. prosecutors from as far back as 2010. Last month’s news, reported by The Wall Street Journal, that his representatives were in talks with U.S. Department of Justice lawyers to reach a possible plea deal may have buoyed the hopes of Assange supporters that this whole ordeal may soon come to an end.

Those hopes may have once again risen when U.S. President Joe Biden, as he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kashida for an official White House visit on April 10 — the day before Assange marked five years of imprisonment — told a reporter that “We’re considering it,” when asked if he had a response to Australian government calls to drop the prosecution of Assange.

However, quietly in the background of the politics — in what is clearly a politically motivated prosecution in the first place — U.K. court proceedings have crawled forward at their lethargic pace since that April day in London in 2019 when Assange was dragged out of Ecuador’s embassy and arrested by officers of the capital’s Metropolitan Police Service.

Since that day when Assange — who launched WikiLeaks in 2006; and became a card-carrying member of the press in 2007 — was arrested and taken to H.M.P. Belmarsh in southeast London, British courts have slowly-but-surely paved the way for Assange’s extradition to America, offering little in the way of resistance to the prosecution and persecution of a journalist, publisher and political prisoner whose stature far outweighs the likes of Alexei Navalny or Evan Gershkovich.

Yet, after five years in the maximum-security prison as a remand prisoner — meaning Assange is held without being guilty of any crime — we hear little in the way of protestations from the likes of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his U.K. counterpart, Lord David Cameron. This, though they routinely like to lecture others on their freedom of press violations.

Last month, in the British High Court, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson continued with the usual trajectory of the case, dismissing an application from Assange’s lawyers to launch an appeal on five of eight submitted grounds. That included a heinous dismissal of the attempts by Assange’s lawyers to introduce new evidence — a reaffirmation of a previous decision, meaning there’s been no new evidence in the case since September 2020. Needless to say, a lot has changed since.

On the three remaining grounds, where judges found that Assange’s lawyers *might* be able to launch an appeal, another sleight-of-hand trick was revealed. The U.S. government, whose highest-placed officials are on record as having plotted to either kill or kidnap Assange, were given the opportunity to provide fresh assurances — something they’ve already been allowed to do in 2021, when another court ruling didn’t go their way.

In last month’s judgement, issued on March 26, the judges gave the U.S. a deadline of April 16 to submit their assurances on the following grounds — that Assange is permitted to rely on the First Amendment; that he is not prejudiced at trial, including at sentencing, by reason of his nationality; that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen; and that the death penalty is not imposed.)

Et viola. By Tuesday afternoon, just in time for the April 16 deadline, the U.S. government, via its billion-dollar embassy in southwest London, has filed its assurances as requested by the British court.

An acquired text of the assurances provided by the U.S. government stipulates the following.

First, that should Assange be extradited from the U.K., he “will not be prejudiced by reason of his nationality with respect to which defences he may seek to raise at trial and at sentencing.

“Specifically, if extradited, Assange will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

“A decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. courts.”

The second assurance was that: “A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange.

“The United States is able to provide such assurance as Assange is not charged with a death-penalty eligible offence, and the United States assures that he will not be tried for a death-eligible offence.”

The document added: “These assurances are binding on any and all present or subsequent individuals to whom authority has been delegated to decide matters.”

Despite what may read as another positive step for Assange, his wife, Stella, insisted otherwise.

In a post on X on Wednesday, she accused the U.S. of issuing “a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty.”

She added: “It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S. citizen.

“Instead, the US had limited itself to limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited.

“The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future — his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism.”

She reiterated her appeal to President Biden to “drop this prosecution before it is too late.”

But these new U.S. assurances, coupled with the fact that the CIA director William J. Burns has this week made a declaration supporting the U.S. government in a different legal case involving Assange, indicate strongly that Biden is pushing ahead with plans to bring the journalist to the U.S. for trial.

Nonetheless, British courts have another chance at redeeming themselves. On May 20, they will decide whether the U.S. assurances are sufficient or whether an appeal hearing should take place. In the meantime, lawyers for both Assange and the U.S. government now have until April 30 to make fresh written submissions to the judges to make their cases.

The case continues.