The rain this Wednesday threatened to deflate the spirit of those who are demonstrating in London these days in defense of Julian Assange and freedom of the press, but at 10:30 (11:30, in Spanish peninsular time), at the beginning of the second session of the judicial hearing that must decide the fate of the former Wikileaks editor, the short space of the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice building was once again packed with dozens of people supporting the prisoner.
The two judges, Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, could announce their decision at the end of the afternoon this Wednesday, although the legal complexity of the matter – and its political sensitivity – may make both judges decide to take a few days before issuing a ruling. verdict.
In any case, the organizers of the protests have already called on attendees, at the end of the hearing, to a march through the streets of London that must conclude before the doors of Downing Street, residence of the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
The second day of the hearing has been dominated by the arguments and allegations of the legal representatives of the US Government, who demand that the British Executive hand over Asssange.
Lawyer Clair Dobbin has tried to dismantle the main argument of Assange's defense.
That is, the case against the prisoner responds to “political motivations.”
The US Prosecutor's Office intends to charge the former
hacker
with 17 crimes against the Espionage Act of 1917 and one more of computer interference.
The lawyers of the former Wikileaks editor have argued that the nature of the offenses contemplated in such an anachronistic law is political - the act of espionage is, they have alleged - and that therefore it is not contemplated within the extradition treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States.
Although the purpose pursued by the US Attorney's Office has few precedents, Dobbin assured, "it is based on principles established over time," such as that "there is no immunity for journalists to violate the law."
The decision to give the green light to Assange's extradition was adopted in 2022 by the then British Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, once the Supreme Court approved the guarantees offered by Washington on the prisoner's safety, and on the measures that would be adopted to prevent him from ending his own life.
But the insistence on persecuting the founder of Wikileaks arose from the Government of Donald Trump.
Former President of the United States Barack Obama had already commuted the sentence of soldier Chelsea Manning, the main source of the secret US security documents published by the portal, and which brought to light
serious
episodes
of
dirty war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Julian Assange's wife, Stella Assange, leaves the High Court of Justice in London this Wednesday. Carl Court (Getty Images)
Lives at risk
Dobbin has made constant references to Manning, as a necessary accomplice of Assange, and has accused both of putting the lives or physical integrity of collaborators of the United States intelligence services at risk.
“The appellant [Assange] created a serious and imminent risk” that those people “would suffer physical harm or danger,” he said, and in doing so, Wikileaks and Assange himself “harmed the capacity of United States forces, and put Likewise, the interests of the United States are at risk,” he alleged.
The lawyer has also made an effort to dismantle the idea that acts of espionage are political in nature or that British legislation itself contemplates this exception.
“The starting position must be, as it always is in these cases, a fundamental presumption of good faith on the part of those countries with which the United Kingdom has long-established relations over time,” the lawyer told the magistrates.
The US Government's legal team has also tried to convince the magistrates of two things: that neither Assange should be considered a journalist per se nor is there evidence to support the statement made the day before by the defense that the CIA had planned to assassinate the former
hacker.
The campaign in defense of Assange, spread throughout the planet, has transcended the legal details of the case and has placed political pressure on the British and American governments to desist from their persecution of the former editor of
Wikileaks and let him go free.
In addition to being locked up for seven years in the brief space of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, under diplomatic protection, he has spent the last five years in the British maximum security prison of Belmarsh.
The demand for their freedom is also the defense of press freedom, which would be seriously threatened in the future with a precedent of these characteristics: if Rishi Sunak's Government handed over the Wikileaks editor to Washington for revealing war crimes and actions questionable actions of the US Government that deserved to be revealed in the public interest.
Protesters in defense of Julian Assange, this Wednesday before the High Court of Justice, in London.HANNAH MCKAY (REUTERS)
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