Assange Extradition Blocked

Some good news this morning. The judge presiding over Julian Assange's show trial ruled that, due to his poor mental health, the WikiLeaks founder cannot be extradited to the United States:

The judge, Vanessa Baraitser of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, said in Monday’s ruling that she was satisfied that the American authorities had brought forth the case “in good faith,” and that Mr. Assange’s actions went beyond simply encouraging a journalist. But she said there was evidence of a risk to Mr. Assange’s health if he were to face trial in the United States, noting that she found “Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial.”

She ruled that the extradition should be refused because “it would be unjust and oppressive by reason of Mr. Assange’s mental condition and the high risk of suicide,” pointing to conditions he would most likely be held under in the United States.

If you read about the trial on Craig Murray's blog or via Consortium News -- major news outlets bizarrely opted not to cover "the trial of the century" -- you know the United States Government's case was  a tapestry of the absurd. If anything, the trial proved that the USG should have been targeting Guardian reporters David Leigh and Luke Harding because they were the ones who published the password to unlock the trove of unredacted classified diplomatic files supplied to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning. Furthermore, WikiLeaks wasn't even the first outlet to publish the unredacted cables; that was Cryptome. Why weren't its founders on trial in the Old Bailey?

It's hard to feel confident about the future of the free flow of information. Independent journalists might be thriving online but a firewall has been erected between them and the mainstream. Reading the newspaper is not what it used to be.