USA v Julian Assange: judgment of Westminster Magistrates' Court (4 January 2021)

In this 132-page judgment District Judge (Magistrates' Court) Vanessa Baraitser decided the United States' request for my extradition to stand trial on the charges in the second superseding indictment. The hearing occupied four days in February 2020 and three weeks in September 2020; a separate 79-page appendix summarised the witness evidence.

The judge rejected most of my defence's arguments, including that the US–UK treaty barred extradition for political offences, that the conduct alleged was not an offence in UK law, that extradition would breach my rights to a fair trial and to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights, and that the request was an abuse of process. She accepted psychiatric evidence that I had a recurrent depressive disorder and autism spectrum disorder, and found a substantial risk that I would take my own life, particularly if held in near-isolation under US 'special administrative measures'.

She concluded: 'I find that the mental condition of Mr Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America', and ordered my discharge under section 91(3) of the Extradition Act 2003. The United States appealed.

The judgment was handed down at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 4 January 2021 and published by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary with its appendix. The High Court allowed the United States' appeal on 10 December 2021 ([2021] EWHC 3313 (Admin)), quashing the discharge order.