Assange Is Too Ill To Attend a Crucial Hearing Against His Extradition

(CTN News) – Due to illness, Julian Assange had to miss his lawyer’s final appeal against extradition to face trial for publishing secret military and diplomatic files in the United States on Tuesday.

The United States wants the Australian extradited after WikiLeaks published files regarding the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 that were published in the United States multiple times between 2018 and 2020.

According to Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald, the prosecution was unjustified. He attended the two-day hearing in Assange’s absence. He is alleged to have obtained and published classified information which is both true and of obvious and important public interest,” Fitzgerald stated.

It was earlier reported that he had informed the judge, Victoria Sharp, that his client, 52, was unwell and would be unable to appear in person or via video link at the London High Court.

“Keep showing up, be there for Julian and us, until Julian is free,” Assange’s wife Stella Assange said before the hearing. The crowd outside court chanted “Free Julian Assange.”

We are looking forward to a busy two days. It is because of the world’s attention that you are here,” Stella Assange explained.

There is no way they can get away with it. The legal saga of Julian Assange in Britain may be coming to an end after losing successive court rulings over the past several years.

He will have a second opportunity to argue his case if this appeal is successful, with a hearing scheduled for next week in London. In the event that loses his appeals to the UK, the extradition process will begin.

The wife of Julian, however, warned that he would die if extradited to the US, and that he would ask the European Court of Human Rights to temporarily halt the extradition if neccessary.

“He is in a very difficult place physically and mentally today, and tomorrow and the next day will determine whether or not he lives or dies,” she told BBC radio on Monday.

Last week, Wik­iLeaks’ editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, told reporters that caveats included within the US promises made them “unworthwhile”.

The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “enough is enough” about the ongoing legal pursuit of Assange on the same day.

His prosecution ended after Australia’s parliament passed a motion to stop it.

Two of Assange’s children are from his marriage to a lawyer he met as part of his case. She is also a lawyer.

A protest march would be held later Tuesday towards Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office, as Hrafnsson announced after the morning’s court proceedings.

SEE ALSO:

Gila Monster Bite Kills Colorado Man Days Later