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Assange Vows to Fight UK Approval of Extradition to US

Posters, badges and leaflets picturing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are displayed on a table in front of the Home Office building, in London, on May 17, 2022, during a demonstration to protest against the extradition of Assange. (AFP)
Posters, badges and leaflets picturing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are displayed on a table in front of the Home Office building, in London, on May 17, 2022, during a demonstration to protest against the extradition of Assange. (AFP)
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Assange Vows to Fight UK Approval of Extradition to US

Posters, badges and leaflets picturing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are displayed on a table in front of the Home Office building, in London, on May 17, 2022, during a demonstration to protest against the extradition of Assange. (AFP)
Posters, badges and leaflets picturing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are displayed on a table in front of the Home Office building, in London, on May 17, 2022, during a demonstration to protest against the extradition of Assange. (AFP)

Supporters of Julian Assange on Friday vowed to fight his extradition to the United States after Britain approved a US request for the WikiLeaks founder to face trial over the publication of secret military files.

"We're not at the end of the road here. We're going to fight this. We're going to use every appeal avenue," Stella Assange, who married the Australian publisher earlier this year, told reporters.

His lawyer, Jen Robinson, urged US President Joe Biden to drop the charges and called on the Australian government to press for her client's release.

"We will appeal this all the way through the British courts and if necessary to the European Court of Human Rights," she added.

The Assange case has become a cause celebre for media freedom and his supporters accuse Washington of trying to muzzle reporting of legitimate security concerns.

He is wanted to face trial for violating the US Espionage Act by publishing military and diplomatic files in 2010 and could face up to 175 years in jail if found guilty, although the exact sentence is difficult to estimate.

The UK interior ministry earlier announced that Home Secretary Priti Patel had approved the extradition order but that he had 14 days to appeal.

'Dark day'

That sets up yet another court hearing in the long-running legal saga, which began in 2010 after WikiLeaks published more than 500,000 classified US documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His supporters have held frequent rallies to protest the planned deportation, accusing Washington of a politically motivated campaign as Assange, 50, had exposed US war crimes and a cover-up.

WikiLeaks said the decision was a "dark day for press freedom and for British democracy" and alleged that Assange had been on a CIA hit-list.

"Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher, and he is being punished for doing his job," the group said in a statement.

Extradition was a work of "revenge" and an attempt to "try to disappear him into the darkest recesses of their prison system for the rest of his life to deter others from holding governments to account".

Amnesty International said the government's approval of the extradition "sends a chilling message" to journalists and exposed Assange to torture and ill-treatment if he were kept in solitary confinement.

The human rights monitor's secretary-general Agnes Callamard said diplomatic assurances that he would be well treated were not to be trusted, she added.

No grounds

The Home Office, however, said there were no grounds for Patel to block the extradition order, which was made on April 20.

"In this case, the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr. Assange," a spokesperson said.

"Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression, and that whilst in the US he will be treated appropriately, including in relation to his health."

Legal experts said Assange's decision to appeal sets up potentially months of legal hearings.

He would first need permission to appeal from the High Court. If that was granted, the hearing might not be until early next year.

"He could also make an application to the European Court of Human Rights," said Kate Goold, an extradition lawyer at London firm Bindmans.

'Lengthy process'

"Once you get to the European Court of Human Rights, it's a very, very slow process," added another specialist Rebecca Niblock, from lawyers Kingsley Napley.

"Extradition is a very lengthy process and it is very unlikely that this will be the end of it."

Assange has been held on remand at a top-security jail in southeast London since 2019 for jumping bail in a previous case accusing him of sexual assault in Sweden.

That case was dropped but he was not released from prison after serving time for breaching bail on the grounds he was a flight risk in the US extradition case.

His supporters have tried to secure his release and block his extradition on the grounds that he was a suicide risk if held in punishing isolation in US custody.

Assange, who got married behind bars in March, spent seven years at Ecuador's embassy in London to avoid being removed to Sweden.

He was arrested when the government changed in Quito and his diplomatic protection was removed.

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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)

On 24 February 2022, in a televised speech heralding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin issued what was interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries should they interfere.

“Russia will respond immediately,” he said, “and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

Then on 27 February 2022, Putin ordered Russia to move nuclear forces to a “special mode of combat duty’, which has a significant meaning in terms of the protocols to launch nuclear weapons from Russia.”

Dr. Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security program at Chatham House, wrote in a report that according to Russian nuclear weapons experts, Russia’s command and control system cannot transmit launch orders in peacetime, so increasing the status to “combat” allows a launch order to go through and be put into effect.

She said Putin made stronger nuclear threats in September 2022, following months of violent conflict and gains made by a Ukrainian counterattack.

“He indicated a stretch in Russian nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use from an existential threat to Russia to a threat to its territorial integrity,” Lewis wrote.

In November 2022, according to much later reports, the US and allies detected manoeuvres that suggested Russian nuclear forces were being mobilized.

Lewis said that after a flurry of diplomatic activity, China’s President Xi Jinping stepped in to calm the situation and speak against the use of nuclear weapons.

In September 2024, Putin announced an update of the 2020 Russian nuclear doctrine. The update was published on 19 November 2024 and formally reduced the threshold for nuclear weapons use.

According to Lewis, the 2020 doctrine said that Russia could use nuclear weapons “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”

On 21 November 2024, Russia attacked Dnipro in Ukraine using a new ballistic missile for the first time.

She said Putin announced the missile as the ‘Oreshnik’, which is understood to be a nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile which has a theoretical range of below 5,500km.

Lewis added that Russia has fired conventionally armed nuclear-capable missiles at Ukraine throughout the war, but the Oreshnik is much faster and harder to defend against, and suggests an escalatory intent by Russia.

Nuclear Response During Cold War

In her report, Lewis said that nuclear weapons deterrence was developed in the Cold War primarily on the basis of what was called ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD).

The idea behind MAD is that the horror and destruction from nuclear weapons is enough to deter aggressive action and war, she added.

But the application of deterrence theory to post-cold war realities is far more complicated in the era of cyberattacks and AI, which could interfere with the command and control of nuclear weapons.

In light of these risks, presidents Biden and Xi issued a joint statement from the 2024 G20 summit affirming the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.

The US and Russia exchange information on their strategic, long-range nuclear missiles under the New START agreement – a treaty to reduce and monitor nuclear weapons between the two countries which is set to expire in February 2026.

But, Lewis said, with the US decision to exit the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, there are no longer any agreements between the US and Russia regulating the number or the deployment of ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km.

She said short-range nuclear weapons were withdrawn and put in storage as a result of the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives but are not subject to any legal restraints.

The 10th NPT Review Conference was held in 2022 in New York. The issue of nuclear weapons threats and the targeting of nuclear power stations in Ukraine were central to the debate.

Lewis noted that a document was carefully crafted to finely balance concerns about the three pillars of the treaty – non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. But Russia withdrew its agreement on the last day of the conference, scuppering progress.

“It was believed that if Russia were to use nuclear weapons it would likely be in Ukraine, using short range, lower yield ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons,” she said, adding that Russia is thought to have more than 1,000 in reserve.

“These would have to be taken from storage and either connected to missiles, placed in bombers, or as shell in artillery,” Lewis wrote.

Increasingly the rhetoric from Russia suggests nuclear threats are a more direct threat to NATO – not only Ukraine – and could refer to longer range, higher yield nuclear weapons.

For example in his 21 September 2022 speech, Putin accused NATO states of nuclear blackmail, referring to alleged “statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

Putin added: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

There have been no expressed nuclear weapons threats from NATO states.

NATO does rely on nuclear weapons as a form of deterrence and has recently committed to significantly strengthen its longer-term deterrence and defence posture in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The current UK Labor government has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to British nuclear weapons – including before the July 2024 election, according to Lewis.

Therefore, she said, any movement to ready and deploy Russian nuclear weapons would be seen and monitored by US and others’ satellites, which can see through cloud cover and at night – as indeed appears to have happened in late 2022.

Lewis concluded that depending on other intelligence and analysis – and the failure of all diplomatic attempts to dissuade Russia – NATO countries may decide to intervene to prevent launch by bombing storage sites and missile deployment sites in advance.