LONDON: The US government is scheduled to ask Britain’s High Court on Wednesday to overturn a judge’s decision that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should not be sent to the United States to face espionage charges.
In January, a lower court judge refused an American request to extradite Assange on spying charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret military documents a decade ago.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied extradition on health grounds, saying Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions. But she rejected defense arguments that Assange faces a politically motivated American prosecution that would override free-speech protections, and she said the US judicial system would give him a fair trial.
Lawyers for US authorities have been granted permission to appeal. At an earlier hearing they questioned the psychiatric evidence in the case and argued that Assange does not meet the threshold of being “so ill” that he cannot resist harming himself.
Several dozen pro-Assange protesters rallied outside London’s Royal Courts of Justice before the hearing, which is scheduled to last two days.
Assange, who is being held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, had been expected to attend by video link, but he was not present as the hearing began. His lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said Assange “doesn’t feel able to attend the proceedings.”
Assange’s partner, Stella Moris, said outside court that she was “very concerned for Julian’s health. I saw him on Saturday. He’s very thin.”
“It is completely unthinkable that the UK courts could agree to this,” Moris said. “I hope the courts will end this nightmare, that Julian is able to come home soon and that wise heads prevail.”
The two justices hearing the appeal — who include England’s most senior judge, Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett — are not expected to give their ruling for several weeks.
The High Court’s ruling will likely not end the epic legal saga, however, since the losing side can seek to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.
US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
The prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published. Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange, 50, has been in prison since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that he spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy, where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.
Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed, but Assange remains in prison. The judge who blocked extradition in January ordered that he must stay in custody during any US appeal, ruling that the Australian citizen “has an incentive to abscond” if he is freed.
WikiLeaks supporters say testimony from witnesses during the extradition hearing that Assange was spied on while in the embassy by a Spanish security firm at the behest of the CIA — and that there was even talk of abducting or killing him — undermines US claims he will be treated fairly.
Journalism organizations and human rights groups have urged President Joe Biden to drop the prosecution launched under his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said the charges were politically motivated and should be dropped.
“It is a damning indictment that nearly 20 years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail,” she said.
US set to appeal UK refusal to extradite WikiLeaks’ Assange
https://arab.news/jnnzw
US set to appeal UK refusal to extradite WikiLeaks’ Assange
- In January, a lower court judge refused an American request to extradite Assange on spying charges
- US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse
Grok faces more scrutiny over deepfakes as Irish regulator opens EU privacy investigation
- The regulator says Grok has created and shared sexualized images of real people, including children. Researchers say some examples appear to involve minors
- X also faces other probes in Europe over illegal content and user safety
LONDON: Elon Musk’s social media platform X faces a European Union privacy investigation after its Grok AI chatbot started spitting out nonconsensual deepfake images, Ireland’s data privacy regulator said Tuesday.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission said it notified X on Monday that it was opening the inquiry under the 27-nation EU’s strict data privacy regulations, adding to the scrutiny X is facing in Europe and other parts of the world over Grok’s behavior.
Grok sparked a global backlash last month after it started granting requests from X users to undress people with its AI image generation and editing capabilities, including putting females in transparent bikinis or revealing clothing. Researchers said some images appeared to include children. The company later introduced some restrictions on Grok, though authorities in Europe weren’t satisfied.
The Irish watchdog said its investigation focuses on the apparent creation and posting on X of “potentially harmful” nonconsensual intimate or sexualized images containing or involving personal data from Europeans, including children.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
Grok was built by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and is available through X, where its responses to user requests are publicly visible.
The watchdog said the investigation will seek to determine whether X complied with the EU data privacy rules known as GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation. Under the rules, the Irish regulator takes the lead on enforcing the bloc’s privacy rules because X’s European headquarters is in Dublin. Violations can result in hefty fines.
The regulator “has been engaging” with X since media reports started circulating weeks earlier about “the alleged ability of X users to prompt the @Grok account on X to generate sexualized images of real people, including children,” Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in a press statement.
Spain’s government has ordered prosecutors to investigate X, Meta and TikTok for alleged crimes related to the creation and proliferation of AI-generated child sex abuse material on their platforms, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday.
“These platforms are attacking the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters,” Sánchez wrote on X.
Spain announced earlier this month that it was pursuing a ban on access to social media platforms for under-16s.
Earlier this month, French prosecutors raided X’s Paris offices and summoned Musk for questioning. Meanwhile, the data privacy and media regulators in Britain, which has left the EU, have opened their own investigations into X.
The platform is already facing a separate EU investigation from Brussels over whether it has been complying with the bloc’s digital rulebook for protecting social media users that requires platforms to curb the spread of illegal content such as child sexual abuse material.
