Julian Assange: Lawyers describe US prosecution as state retaliation

Julian Assange’s legal representatives have accused the United States of engaging in “state retaliation” in its pursuit to prosecute the Wikileaks founder.

Assange has been held in a UK jail since 2019 and is facing extradition to the United States over allegations of disclosing classified military documents in 2010 and 2011.

During a two-day High Court hearing that started on Tuesday, his legal team said that extraditing him would go against UK law.

Should the appeal be denied Assange faces the possibility of extradition in a matter of weeks.

Edward Fitzgerald KC, one of the Australian’s legal counsels said that the US’s efforts to prosecute were “politically motivated.”

“Mr Assange was exposing serious criminality” when he disclosed the documents in question, Fitzgerald told judges Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson.

He told them his client was “being prosecuted for engaging in [the] ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information – information that is both true and of obvious and important public interest.”

Another of Assange’s lawyers, Mark Summers KC, said the US sought retribution for Assange’s political opinions – one of many bars to extradition from the UK, as set out by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).