“If Julian were extradited to the United States, he would die.”

London, February 15 (EFE).- Stella Assange warned this Thursday about the health of her husband Julian Assange, before next week he faces the final stage of the extradition process to the United States, accused of espionage. Is demanding them for 18 crimes. and computer intrusions following its disclosure on the WikiLeaks portal.

“If Julian is extradited to the United States, he will die,” the 40-year-old lawyer told EFE at the end of a press conference in London with Kristin Hrafnsson, the current director of WikiLeaks, and a representative of Reporters Without Borders. (RSF) Rebecca, Vincent.

“This is Julian’s final appeal. If he loses this round, his path to the UK courts will end. There is no possibility of an appeal. Of course, he will try to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). ), but the British government will seek his extradition,” he said.

The mother of her two youngest children said her husband’s physical and mental health had “deteriorated” since suffering a minor stroke in October 2021 and that he spent 22 hours a day in a 3×2 meter glass cell at London’s Belmarsh prison. Are suffering the consequences. ,

Stella Assange recalled that, as had already been proven during the process, the 52-year-old Australian presents a suicide risk and assured that he would not survive the extreme conditions of a high-security American prison.

In this sense, he told EFE that the ‘diplomatic guarantees’ given by Washington in previous trials that it would ensure his health are false.

“These alleged guarantees are conditional, they do not prevent the United States from doing anything (…). The terms of his imprisonment will be decided by the CIA, the same agency that plotted his assassination,” he declared.

“There is no doubt that he will be buried so far away and in such a deep hole that I don’t think I will ever see him again,” the Swedish-Spanish lawyer lamented.

After hearing the parties on 20 and 21 February, London’s High Court will decide whether Assange should be allowed to re-appeal his case in this country, which would trigger a new appeal hearing, or whether he should instead face trial. He should proceed to hand over the United States. The United States was authorized by the then British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, in 2022.

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Although a decision could take several weeks, the 52-year-old journalist’s legal team fears two Superior Court judges will greenlight extradition on Tuesday, in which case they will request an immediate ‘Order 39’ from the ECtHR. Stop it before the European Court requests a review of the case.

Hrafnsson and Vincent expressed hope that talks between the US and Australian governments to drop the charges against Assange, which they view as politically motivated, would be fruitful.

Assange has been in preventive detention at Belmarsh since he was detained at the request of the US, which had withdrawn his asylum, following his expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on April 11, 2019.

The journalist sought asylum there in 2012 at the request of Sweden, following his initial arrest in the British capital in 2010 for a case now archived.

The United States is pursuing him for classified information – provided by his US Army contact Chelsea Manning, now free, published by WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011 – that exposed US human rights violations in Iraq and the Iraq Wars. . Afghanistan.

(c) EFE Agency