“The United States Government’s assurance that Julian Assange would have all the protections of a US citizen in a US court is obviously a fantasy. That Mr Assange will have the ‘ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States’, but its applicability ‘is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. Courts’ is no assurance at all. Either he does or he doesn’t, it’s as simple as that. Indeed these assurances are basically political promises and there is no way of enforcing them in a court of law.
“If the US can’t guarantee that Mr Assange will unequivocally be able to rely on the free speech protection under the First Amendment, then the United Kingdom High Court of Justice must allow Mr Assange to appeal his extradition. Even better, the US can come to a diplomatic solution and drop the prosecution of Mr Assange to allow him to return to Australia.”