London court allows Assange to appeal ruling in extradition fight

Julian Assange can appeal a decision that said he could be extradited to the United States, the High Court in London said in a decision handed down Monday.

Assange is wanted on a dozen espionage charges in the United States, which is pushing for his extradition.

Late last year, a British court ruled that the WikiLeaks founder could be extradited to the U.S. over the charges.

But London’s High Court will allow Assange to appeal the case to the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom.

The Supreme Court, however, must accept it before it progresses any further, a process that typically takes about eight weeks, according to The Associated Press. 

“Make no mistake, we won today in court,” Stella Moris, Assange’s fiancée, said following the decision, the AP reported.

“We will fight this until Julian is free,” Moris also said.

Assange has long attempted to avoid trial in the U.S. related to WikiLeaks’ publishing of classified documents over a decade ago. 

The decision allowing Assange to be extradited followed a lower court ruling that rejected extradition on the basis that Assange was likely to kill himself if held in poor conditions in a U.S. prison. But U.S. authorities later promised that he would not face conditions that risked his physical or mental health, the AP reported. 

Now, the WikiLeaks founder’s attorneys are seeking an appeal because those promises were made after the lower court had already ruled on the case, allowing U.S. authorities the ability to change that promise at their own discretion, the wire service added. 

Assange remains in Belmarsh Prison, a high-security London facility where he has been since 2019.