Here is something for Foreign Minister Marise Payne to consider. An Australian citizen, Julian Assange, has found out overnight, in a decision many didnโt see coming, that because of his high risk of suicide and the horrendous jail conditions in the US he would face, he is not to be extradited from Britain. Assange faced charges involving alleged espionage and hacking, arising from the publication in 2010-11 of material showing US war crimes in Iraq.
Judge Baraitser accepted most of the US legal teamโs arguments in the case, including that Assange could get a fair trial, that the case was not about freedom of speech but something more sinister, and that the suffering of Assangeโs family in having their loved one taken to the US was not out of the ordinary.
But she would not come at the proposal to place Assange, a man who is at great risk of suicide and who suffers mental illness, in jail conditions that amounted to solitary confinement for years on end. "Faced with conditions of near total isolation โฆ I am satisfied that the procedures (outline by US authorities) will not prevent Mr Assange from finding a way to commit suicide," Judge Baraitser said.
The message Senator Payne ought to be sending is that Assange is an Australian citizen and there is deep concern running across political lines, and in the broader Australian community, about one of its citizens facing more than 170 years jail for revealing the underbelly of war and being kept in conditions that amount to torture. Australia as a deeply loyal ally but the US, as it did in vastly different circumstances in the case of former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, can respect that alliance by ensuring this Australian citizen does not face an effective death penalty.
Fresh from diplomatic manoeuvring and delicate pressure successfully applied to persuade Iran to release Melbourne academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in November it is time for Senator Payne to immediately pick up the phone to both her counterpart, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose term ends in three weeks, and Tony Blinken, the man new President Joe Biden has nominated to the position.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/judge-blocks-julian-assanges-extradition-us/story?id=75035603
