Assange's Wife Files Representations With Priti Patel to Block His Extradition to US

The Westminster Magistrates’ Court formally approved Julian Assange's extradition to the United States in late April, bringing the WikiLeaks founder one step closer to being sent overseas, where he could face death in prison if convicted on espionage charges filed against him by the US government.

Julian Assange's defence team has filed representations with UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, asking her to block the activist's extradition to the US, Stella Moris, Mr Assange's wife, has announced.

"Defence submissions to Home Secretary @pritipatel have just been filed, arguing why the US extradition of #Assange must be blocked", Morris wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

"The US and UK are happy to talk about political prisoners abroad but they've created a political prisoner of their own. At every stage the law has been abused in order to victimise Julian. He has been silenced, he has been disappeared. The last time Julian was allowed to attend his own court hearing was in January 2021", Moris said in a video attached to a second tweet about the defence team's plans.

"Julian did nothing wrong. He exposed war crimes - war crimes committed by known individuals. Those who committed the war crimes or are responsible for those war crimes have not been held accountable. Julian is in prison because WikiLeaks is a publisher that specializes in the secrets that states keep the most hidden", Moris added.

Assange's revelations included evidence of US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the institutionalisation of torture, she noted.

"The position of the UK right now is that it will extradite a publisher to the country that conspired to murder him", Moris said, referring to media revelations from last year that the CIA had discussed plans to kidnap or assassinate Assange. "How can the UK government even contemplate the extradition of the man who the US was trying to assassinate?" she asked.

"This is a country plotting to assassinate a journalist because of what he has published. This is precisely what the UK government criticizes in other states. Conspiring to murder a journalist is wrong. It's wrong if Russia does it, and it's wrong if the United States does it too", Moris stressed.

Moris suggested that because the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the only potential accountability it can face for war crimes is through their exposure via WikiLeaks.

Pointing to US plans to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act, Moris said that US government's position boils down to the idea that "any person anywhere anywhere is bound by the US Espionage Act. This is a completely absurd and dangerous proposition. Julian is not a US citizen. He's an Australian citizen, who was working as a journalist in the United Kingdom. He owes no allegiance to the US government. He received information from a source - Chelsea Manning, and he published it. That's all he did. And now the United States is threatening Julian with a life sentence - 175 years. It advances the absurd notion that a country can limit press freedom beyond its borders".

WikiLeaks' "scientific journalism" is a threat to legacy media, as it proposes the publication of original source documents to allow readers to draw their own conclusions instead of having them spoonfed to them. This accounts for the media's poor record of reporting on Assange, Moris suggested.

The Westminster Magistrates' Court issued an order to extradite Assange to the US on 20 April, with the final decision up to the UK government.

Assange has been effectively imprisoned since 2012, when he took shelter at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London amid fears that he could be extradited to the United States. He was dragged out of the embassy in 2019, and has been held in British custody ever since.

In late 2021, the London High Court greenlit a US appeal to extradite Assange, overturning an earlier ruling that he should not be extradited due to poor health and the inhumane conditions that would await him in a US jail.

Moris and Assange were wed in March. They began a relationship in 2015, while the South African-born lawyer was serving as his attorney. They were engaged in 2017, and have two children.

"The only thing that matters to me is to be able to reunite my family again. Julian has been deprived of being able to see his children grow up day-to-day. All we want is to be a normal family. The fact that he's being deprived from his family for no reason at all, just out of a spiteful cruel sense of vengeance by the superpower who he has exposed has to come to an end", Moris said in her appeal.