The High Court of Justice in London will decide in February on a new appeal by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange against his extradition to the United States, where he faces charges of massive leaks of classified documents, his supporters announced on Tuesday.
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The hearing, scheduled for February 20 and 21, “may be Julian Assange's last chance to avoid extradition to the United States,” they wrote in a statement.
Two judges will review the Supreme Court's June 6 decision by a single judge to deny Julian Assange permission to appeal, his supporters said.
After the hearing in February, Julian Assange will therefore either have “other options to present his case in the UK courts”, “or he will have exhausted all legal remedies, with no possibility of further appeal in the UK, and will therefore be subject to extradition proceedings enter.”
However, an action before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is “still possible,” said its supporters.
The 52-year-old Australian is being prosecuted in the US for publishing more than 700,000 classified documents since 2010 about US military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As such, he faces decades in prison.
He was arrested by British police in 2019 after being held in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. He was then held for four years at the maximum security prison in Belmarsh, east London.
His supporters portray him as a martyr for press freedom.
The British government accepted his extradition in June 2022, but Julian Assange appealed.