Julian Assange’s fate may lie with Sajid Javid

IN 2011 JULIAN ASSANGE was asked whether he had in mind a title for his autobiography. “Ban This Book: From Swedish Whores to Pentagon Bores” was his flippant suggestion—a reference to rape allegations made against him in Stockholm and his publication of American secrets through WikiLeaks, his anti-secrecy organisation. Although he originally fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in London to evade the rape investigation, it is the Pentagon bores who have now caught up with him.

Having exhausted his hosts’ patience after nearly seven years inside, on April 11th he was dragged from the embassy and arrested. America has requested his extradition. Sweden may yet join the queue to put him on trial.

Mr Assange came to prominence in 2010 when WikiLeaks published huge troves of documents stolen by Chelsea Manning, an American soldier. Some were newsworthy, like evidence of an indiscriminate helicopter attack in Iraq. Others, like American diplomats’ confidential missives, were titillating but revealed little wrongdoing. In 2013 WikiLeaks helped Edward Snowden, a whistleblower from America’s National Security Agency, to flee from Hong Kong to Russia. In 2016 it collaborated with thinly disguised Russian spies to publish leaked emails, with the aim of hurting Hillary Clinton’s chances in that year’s American presidential election.

Mr Assange is no martyr for press freedom. His dumping of reams of sensitive information without redaction was the act of an anarchist, not a journalist. Worse still was his eagerness to work with suspected (later, proven) Russian spies to sway an election. Even so, it was never clear whether Mr Assange had broken the law. The Obama administration, after deliberating possible violations of the Espionage Act, decided he had not. But Donald Trump’s lawyers were more resourceful.

They picked up on the claim that Mr Assange had helped Ms Manning try to crack the password to a classified Pentagon network (the same one that had earlier yielded copious military reports and diplomatic cables). That, says America’s Department of Justice, constituted “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion”. The felony carries a relatively trifling five-year maximum prison sentence, rather than the decades permitted by the Espionage Act.

Mr Assange now faces two legal challenges, with a possible third to come. The first, for skipping bail in Britain, carries a one-year maximum sentence. The second is America’s extradition request, which is governed by a bilateral treaty that came into force in 2007. That agreement allows America to try people only for the offence for which they were extradited. A judicial bait-and-switch—extraditing Mr Assange for hacking, then hitting him with bigger charges on arrival—would be illegal.

A third charge could arise if Sweden stakes its own claim. It dropped its rape investigation in May 2017 as Mr Assange could not be reached, despite his occasional Evita-like appearances on the balcony of the embassy. But it has until August 2020 to re-open the case if it chooses.

Sajid Javid, Britain’s home secretary, who is ramping up an undeclared campaign to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, would arbitrate in any tug-of-war. Extradition requests are usually prioritised by the order in which they are made, as well as by the severity of the offence. Sweden’s place in the queue is unclear: its original arrest warrant in 2010 preceded America’s, but a new one would follow it. As for severity, the alleged rape would carry a maximum sentence of four years, one shy of America’s hacking charge.

Political battle-lines are being drawn. “The extradition of Julian Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed by the British government,” declared Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, on April 11th. The Swedish case, he added two days later, was different: “There can be no hiding place from those accusations.” Seventy mostly Labour MPs and peers have written to Mr Javid urging that Mr Assange be extradited to Sweden, should a request be made. In the meantime, Mr Assange will have plenty of time to work on that autobiography.