The US is playing a high-risk legal game in refusing to fold its tent and walk away from the prosecution of Australian citizen Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes.

A few weeks ago US President Joe Biden told reporters he was ‘considering’ Australia’s request to end the pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The US has been seeking to extradite Assange over the publication by WikiLeaks of classified information in 2010 which revealed, among other things, US war crimes in Iraq. Last night’s decision by the UK High Court to allow Assange leave to appeal on grounds concerning his being discriminated against in a US court – by not being guaranteed the right to rely on a freedom of expression defence (the First Amendment of the US Constitution – because he is not a US citizen, should have President Biden moving to accede to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s request.

In essence, and this would trouble all Australians, not just lawyers, the US is saying Assange, as a non citizen, can argue the case for the First Amendment protections being a........

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