It was the last chance counter-offensive, at least on British soil.
Julian Assange's attempt to obtain from the United Kingdom justice system a last resort against his extradition has not been successful for the moment, but British justice has left the door open to this scenario.
She asked the United States on Tuesday for new guarantees regarding the treatment that would be reserved for the founder of WikiLeaks, without which she would grant him this last resort against his extradition, accepted almost two years ago by the British government.
The judges gave three weeks to the American authorities, who want to try the Australian for a massive leak of confidential documents, to guarantee that Julian Assange could benefit from the First Amendment of the American Constitution which protects freedom of expression, and that he would not be sentenced to the death penalty, according to a summary of the judgment.
The epilogue of this file is therefore further postponed.
This long legal drama began in January 2021, when British justice initially ruled in favor of Assange.
Citing a risk of suicide for the founder of WikiLeaks, judge Vanessa Baraitser refused to give the green light to extradition.
But this decision was then reversed in 2022.
In recent days, Assange's supporters have warned of the risks weighing on the life of the 52-year-old Australian, detained for almost five years in the United Kingdom, in a case erected as a symbol of the threats weighing on the freedom of press.
European justice as a last resort?
To try to reassure him about the treatment that would be inflicted on him, the United States had already affirmed that he would not be incarcerated at the very high security ADX prison in Florence (Colorado), nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies” and that he would receive the necessary clinical and psychological care.
The Americans had also raised the possibility that he could ask to serve his sentence in Australia.
Without convincing, obviously, the Assange clan.
There is only one hope left: the European Court of Human Rights.
“We hope to have time to seize (it)” to intervene in time, declared the wife of the founder of WikiLeaks before the hearing.
If he is extradited, “he will die,” she said last week.
Also read “If he is extradited to the United States, he will not survive”: the warning message from Assange’s wife
In the United States, Julian Assange faces up to 175 years in prison.
He is being prosecuted for having published since 2010 more than 700,000 confidential documents on American military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among them was a video showing civilians, including two Reuters journalists, killed by fire from an American combat helicopter in Iraq in July 2007. These documents were obtained thanks to American soldier Chelsea Manning.
Sentenced in August 2013 to 35 years in prison by a court martial, she was released after seven years following a sentence commuted by Barack Obama.