The High Court in London has ruled that Julian Assange can be extradited to the US over WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked military documents a decade ago, according to the Law Society Gazette of England and Wales.

Assange is wanted on 18 counts connected with obtaining and publishing defence and national security information relating to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He has been held in the high-security HMP Belmarsh in southeast London since 2019, after he was arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had stayed since 2012.

In January, district judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange should not be sent to the US, as his mental health was “such that it would be oppressive to extradite him”.

‘Solemn undertakings’

The US appealed against the ruling at a hearing in October, arguing that assurances given to the British government after the district judge’s ruling, about the conditions in which Assange would be held, had dealt with her concerns.

Announcing the court’s decision, Lord Justice Holroyde – who sat with the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett – said the assurances, which he described as “solemn undertakings offered by one government to another”, were “sufficient" to meet the concerns that had led to the district judge’s decision.

The judge said that the US had “excluded the possibility of Assange being made subject to special administrative measures, or held at the ADX Florence Supermax jail” in Colorado, had agreed to consent to his transfer to Australia to serve his sentence if convicted, and had agreed that Assange would receive “appropriate clinical and psychological treatment”.

Minister to decide

Holroyde said Baraitser, having decided to discharge Assange, “ought to have notified the USA of her provisional view, to afford it the opportunity to offer assurances to the court”.

He concluded that the case “must be remitted to Westminster Magistrates’ Court, with a direction that a district judge send the case to the Secretary of State, who will decide whether Mr Assange should be extradited to the USA”.

Holroyde also said that Assange “has indicated that he challenges the district judge’s decisions on the issues which were decided against him, and will seek to raise those issues at a later stage”.