in the last few minutes a judge at the
old bailly has ruled the wikileaks
founder julian assange
cannot be extradited to the united
states our diplomatic correspondent
james landale is here that's a dramatic
ruling james what was said
the judge went through uh in very close
detail
all the defense case made by julian
assange's legal team about why in their
view
he shouldn't be extradited to the united
states to face all these charges related
to the release of thousands of military
documents
almost a decade ago now and she went as
she went through it she said look
do we you know the the assange team had
claimed that the department of justice
would treat him harshly no i have no
evidence for that
uh the the the assange team had claimed
that the charges were political
she said she found no evidence of any
more hostility in the trump
administration to anywhere
and she went through all of these
arguments dismissing the defense case
but then she came to the situation of uh
the mental state of julian assange and
on that she came to the conclusion
that if he were extradited and he were
taken to an american
prison he in the total isolation that he
would likely face
she said into quotes words i'm satisfied
that the procedures described by the us
will not prevent mr assange from finding
a way to commit suicide and for this
reason
i've decided extradition would be
oppressive by reason of mental harm
and i order his discharge so what
happens now this was
the old bailey is there going to be an
appeal uh the americans have said that
they are likely to appeal they've got 14
days to do so and then you know
at the moment this is you know just a
district judge has made this it could go
up to the high court and then the
supreme court
um so there is a process to be gone
underway
so the americans have 14 days in which
to lodge that appeal
the interesting question is what happens
to julian assange now
there's been a request that he be bailed
because if you think about it
he has been in detention facing these
charges in belmar prison for the last 21
months
before that he spent seven years
voluntarily holed up in the ecuadorian
embassy so this is a man who has been
confined initially voluntarily and
subsequently by the state for a very
very long period of time
and the question now is well will he get
any bail conditions will he be allowed
out or not and that's been decided
uh at the moment and how long could the
process
go on for if there are appeals because
as you say this it
involves someone who is incarcerated if
it comes to an end
he would be free to go uh i mean
you know it's always very good very
careful about judging
how long legal process is going to take
but potentially quite a long time if you
think about it
this extradition process just to get to
this point you know it's been 21 months
since he was initially detained and
removed from the ecuadorian embassy
uh you've now got a substantial appeals
process you've got to have you know
appeals has got to be granted
or not if the appeal is granted then
you've got the process to go through so
you know
we're talking you know months maybe
years
thank you very much james