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00:00 Now to London, where there has been a huge boost for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
00:04 in his battle to avoid extradition to the United States.
00:08 London's High Court has just ruled that US assurances over his case were unsatisfactory
00:13 and that he would get a full appeal hearing.
00:15 We're going to talk more about this with Bénédicte Paviot, who joins me now live from London.
00:20 Bénédicte, what more do we know about this decision?
00:22 Well, we expected a ruling today.
00:27 You can hear the cheers of the supporters.
00:29 They're waiting for Stella Assange, his wife, to come out and his defence team.
00:33 But judges Victoria Sharpe and Justice Johnson have indeed ruled.
00:38 And the ruling is that the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange can bring a new appeal against
00:45 extradition to the United States.
00:47 That is the High Court ruling, which is very, very significant.
00:52 The judges have granted leave to appeal on grounds four and five.
00:56 And they relate to the First Amendment protections in the US and freedom of expression.
01:03 The other grounds related to the death penalty, that was rejected.
01:07 So Stella Assange will be holding a press conference in the next hour or so here in
01:12 central London.
01:13 This is a very clear victory for Julian Assange, who has got this new possibility now in the
01:21 British judicial system to have what he had asked for and his defence team wanted, which
01:27 was in legal terms called a permission to appeal.
01:31 So that is a full hearing on the grounds that I just gave.
01:35 And you can hear the elation from the crowd here.
01:39 There have been politicians, there have been representatives from not just the National
01:44 Union of Journalists here in the United Kingdom, but the International Federation of Journalists.
01:49 Also you've got reporters without borders.
01:52 So very many different bodies watching this ruling very carefully.
01:56 That means Julian Assange, who is in Belmarsh prison and has been there for five years and
02:01 before that in the Ecuadorian embassy, gets to continue his appeal to not be extradited
02:07 to the United States.
02:08 And Benedikt, just for people who have not been covering the story as closely as you
02:12 have for the past decade, if not more, just talk us through what this long legal battle
02:18 has been like for him.
02:20 Well, it's taken physically and mentally a huge toll on him.
02:26 We know, and that was ruled some time ago by a British, another British judge that was
02:31 at another court, the Old Bailey, that he is a suicidarist.
02:35 So it's taken a mental toll.
02:37 It's taken a toll on his family, his wife, his former lawyer Stella Assange.
02:41 They have two small children.
02:43 But what has effectively happened is that when there was a publication, unprecedented
02:48 in the world, of hundreds of thousands of confidential top military US cables revealing
02:56 all kinds of information, particularly purporting to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, this was
03:03 therefore could be seen by anybody.
03:04 And the US administration was absolutely furious because they said that this was really endangering
03:11 the lives of their informants and people who had helped them.
03:14 This was categorically denied by Julian Assange, who said that the demands by the US for extradition
03:21 was politically motivated, that he was defending his work as a publisher, his work as a journalist.
03:28 And that is why also this ruling has been so closely followed by not just people here
03:34 in the UK, not just by journalists or politicians here in the UK, but across the world for that
03:40 universality of the US being able to reach across the world and get somebody, an Australian,
03:47 a 52-year-old Australian, basically to try and get him over for espionage offences and
03:55 17 other offences.
03:57 And his defence team say risk 175 years in prison.
04:02 And the big worry for them was that would he get a fair trial?
04:07 Clearly the British judges have decided that the grounds on which his defence team has
04:13 now successfully appealed need to be heard in a British court.
04:16 So this could go, this will be examined at a later date.
04:19 I think that both parties have until the 24th of May to make their submissions.
04:24 Benedict thank you for that.
04:25 France 24's Benedict Paviot.
04:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]