The Supreme Court of UK has allowed Julian Assange, Founder of WikiLeaks, to appeal to it against the ruling of the High Court allowing Asange to be extradited to Sweden.
- Julian Assange
Assange’s extradition has been sought by Sweden in connection with the allegations of sexual assault levelled against him by two Swedish women; the accusations were levelled after Assange published several classified documents of USA. Assange has consistently maintained that the charges were false and motivated and expressed apprehensions that he would be handed over to the US by the Swedish authorities so that the US government could prosecute him for the leaks.
The decision to admit Assange’s appeal was taken by a bench of three Supreme Court judges: Lord Hope, Lord Mance, and Lord Dyson. A spokesman of the Supreme Court said: “The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal and a hearing has been scheduled for two days, beginning on 1 February 2012.”
The three-judge bench said that the case involved an issue of “great public importance”. A bench of seven judges will take up the appeal.
If the appeal is dismissed, Assange would have exhausted all his legal options in the UK; he would then have to approach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Julian Assange’s plea is that the extradition warrant was not issued by a competent authority. Now, if that is his only ground for opposing extradition, a favourable decision by the British Supreme Court may not really solve his problems since a fresh extradition warrant signed by the appropriate authority could always be issued. We just hope his plea involves other substantive issues.
Tags: Julian Assange WikiLeaks
