16 February 2021|The Interregnum|Mohamed Elmaazi
Stella Moris has published her latest update in the legal case of her fiancé Julian Assange. In her post Moris also called for continued support to aid with the WikiLeaks founder’s defence against the US government’s attempts to overturn Judge Baraitser’s discharge of the extradition order.
Now that the US government has filed its appeal with the High Court (on 12 Friday 2021), Julian Assange’s legal team are asking for more time so as to file a “cross-appeal”, Stella Moris wrote via her CrowdJustice page on 16 February 2021.
“Julian’s team has asked the High Court to give them more time to consider whether to lodge a cross appeal in order to challenge parts of the ruling where the magistrate did not side with Julian and the press freedom arguments. A cross appeal would provide an opportunity to clear Julian’s name properly”, Moris explained.
“We wanted a UK court to properly quash the extradition and refute the other grounds too. We wanted a finding that the extradition is an attempt to criminalise journalism, not just in the US but in the UK and the rest of the world as well; and that the decision to indict Julian was a political act, a violation of the treaty, a violation of his human rights and an abuse of process”, Moris added.
Although the WikiLeaks publisher’s extradition was blocked by Westminster Magistrates’ Court on health grounds, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser nonetheless found in favour of the vast majority of the arguments presented by the US government. Judge Baraitser essentially determined that, but for Assange’s substantial risk of suicide should he be extradited and subjected to the conditions awaiting him within the US prison system, it would not violate his free speech or due process rights to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing classified documents from US Army whistlbower Chelsea Manning, from 2009 – 2011.
Assange’s legal team is therefore, “considering all these issues, and whether they can be cross-appealed. The Court will set the deadline for the defence to submit its response, and once it has all the arguments before it, the High Court will decide whether it wishes to grant permission for the appeal to be heard”.
Moris then puts Assange’s situation into its more personal context noting that despite being an un-convicted “innocent man” he remains in Belmarsh High-Security prison “where he has been for over 500 days” away from his children.
“There are many terrible things about Belmarsh, not least how cold it has been over the last couple of weeks and that he is isolated in a cell practically all day long”, Moris writes.
“Conditions in detention continue to obstruct his ability to prepare his legal case, a case on which his life depends. He is denied proper access to his lawyers–his legal team is unable to do in-person visits because of Covid, and there are months of waiting lists for video conferencing”, Moris says.
“There are delays in legal papers reaching him and the laptop issued by UK authorities for the court case is read-only, it has no text editing programs, and the keys are glued down to prevent him from typing. This makes it all but impossible for him to provide adequate feedback to his team with regards to the materials required for the appeal”.
Assange’s fiancee, who is herself a lawyer, notes that the campaign “is now at its most critical point”, stressing that “[w]e cannot afford to have the Magistrate Court’s ruling reversed on appeal”.
Moris emphasises that pressure should continue to be applied on the administration of Joe Biden as he appoints his new Attorney General.
She also calls upon supporters to do whatever they can, however they can, to “help raise awareness about Julian’s case in the coming weeks and months, until Julian’s freedom is secured. Go to the dontextraditeassange.com campaign site for resources and ideas”.
“Please keep sharing this fundraising appeal with friends, family, colleagues and anyone else who might be able to donate. This is a David and Goliath battle, and the US government has unlimited resources. Keep explaining why Julian is guilty of nothing other than exposing truths about US war crimes and human rights abuses. An attack on him is an attack on a free press”, Moris writes.
The crowdfunder can be accessed here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/assangeappeal/