On May 20, a two-judge panel of the High Court of England and Wales handed WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange a significant victory. Justice Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp granted him leave to appeal the U.K.’s extradition order on two grounds. The High Court will now schedule a hearing at which Assange will be allowed to argue that his rights to freedom of expression and to be free from discrimination based on his nationality would not be protected if he were extradited to the United States.

In the U.K., the right to appeal is not automatic. While they didn’t rule on the merits of Assange’s claims, Johnson and Sharp determined that the two issues have sufficient legal merit to be reviewed by the High Court.

“I welcome the High Court’s decision to allow the case to proceed to a full appeal,” said Alice Jill Edwards, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. “This is a terribly complex case, but at the heart of it are issues around human rights and values we hold as a society and the protections afforded to those who disclose potential war crimes.”

Speaking outside the courthouse after the May 20 hearing, Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, said the ruling “marks a turning point” and “we are relieved as a family that the court took the right decision. Everyone can see what should be done here. Julian must be freed,” adding, “This case is shameful and it is taking an enormous toll on Julian.”

Assange has been imprisoned for five years in London’s maximum security Belmarsh Prison on an indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration. Assange stands charged with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for WikiLeaks’s 2010-2011 revelation of evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. He faces 175 years in prison if extradited to the U.S., tried and convicted.

In March, Johnson and Sharp denied Assange permission to appeal on six of the nine grounds he raised, saying they did “not have any merit.” But the panel said that Assange had “a real prospect of success” on the three remaining grounds for appeal: If extradited to the U.S., Assange (1) would be denied the right to freedom of expression, (2) would be discriminated against because he’s not a U.S. citizen, and (3) could be sentenced to death.

The panel told counsel for the U.S. in March that if they provided the court with “satisfactory assurances” that Assange wouldn’t be denied any of these rights, he could be extradited to the U.S. without an appeal hearing. This was a departure from the High Court’s 2021 knee-jerk acceptance of U.S. “assurances” that Assange would be treated humanely if extradited, with no opportunity for the defense to rebut those assurances.

In April, the U.S. filed the following ineffective and unenforceable “assurances”:

ASSANGE will not be prejudiced by........

© Truthout