A poster of Julian Assange is attached to the gate at the entrance the High Court in London on Wednesday.Credit:AP
On Wednesday,lawyers for the US government opened their appeal againstJudge Vanessa Baraitser’s January ruling,saying that the judge was obligated to have sought assurances about the conditions in which he’d be held if her concerns were strong enough to justify blocking his extradition.
James Lewis QC set out four binding promises the US government had given the UK,including the guarantee that Assange would receive all recommended clinical and psychological treatment,would not be held under SAMs conditions or be sent to a top-security “supermax” prison in Colorado,and that he could apply to serve out any prison term in his native Australia.
Lewis told the court that the binding promises amounted to a “sea change” in the long-running saga surrounding Assange,and that there had never been a single instance of the US reneging on assurances provided in previous extradition cases.
However,he said that if Assange were to do anything that compromised US national security while in the US,he could still be subjected to SAMs conditions.
Further,the US government argued that the psychiatrist whose evidence convinced the judge in January that Assange could take his own life had misled the court. The psychiatrist had failed to reveal that he knew Assange had formed a relationship with lawyer Stella Moris and fathered two boys with her while hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face possible sexual assault charges there,the US government said.
Stella Moris and her two sons.Credit:Liliana Zaharia
The court has been told that Assange previously resisted suicidal ideations out of concern for the wellbeing of another of his five children.