Assange, the London High Court overturns the first instance sentence: "He can be extradited to the US"

Resounding in London, the High Court overturned the first instance ruling issued last January which denied the extradition of Julian Assange from Great Britain to the United States.

Accepting the appeal of the US legal team, the London court has referred the case to a lower court which will have to express itself again and pushed the extradition of the former red primrose. The sentence of last January had denied the extradition of Assange on the basis of an alleged danger of suicide linked, according to an expert opinion, to the foreseeable judicial and prison treatment he would have suffered.

The British judges then accepted assurances about Assange's treatment in prison, once he was extradited to the US, made by the American authorities to avoid a feared suicide.

Lord Burnett in fact declared: "This risk is in our opinion excluded from the reassurances that are offered" and added that "this conclusion is sufficient to determine the appeal in favor of the USA".

Assange is expected to appeal the decision. Meanwhile, cries of protest have been raised among the many supporters of WikiLeaks who find themselves in front of the Royal Courts of Justice in the British capital.

THE REACTIONS - Stella Moris, Julian Assange's partner and member of his legal team, speaks of a “serious judicial error”. Moris announced his intention to appeal "as soon as possible" to the UK judicial authorities.

The 50-year-old Australian founder of Wikileaks that Washington has been pursuing relentlessly for over 10 years for the dissemination of secret documents in the US risks a sentence of 175 years in prison.

Even Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, called the verdict of the High Court in London "shameful".

“The Court of Appeal of England and Wales - his statements - authorized Assange's extradition to the US. This is a shameful verdict in a political case against a journalist and public activist. It is another manifestation of a cannibal worldview of the Anglo-Saxon tandem ”.

(Unioneonline / L)