UK ruling on Assange extradition ‘resets the game’. What happens next?
Al Jazeera
Rights groups laud latest decision as an investigative journalist warns Assange ‘might be entombed in prison for life’.
Legal experts are voicing hope and caution after London’s High Court ruling this week allowed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to appeal his extradition to the United States.
“The judges have assessed that the issues raised by the Assange legal team had sufficient legal merit that they were suitable for determination by the Court of Appeal,” Donald Rothwell, an international law professor at Australian National University, told Al Jazeera.
“They have not made a finding either way as to their merits, only that there were suitable questions for further determination.”
Assange’s team has argued that he could face a prejudicial trial process or the death penalty if extradited.
Monday’s decision did not guarantee protection from extradition, and did not mean the court accepted these arguments, Rothwell said. But there was a victory in the reversal of a March 26 ruling, which might have allowed the extradition.
