Watch from High Court as Assange faces further wait over whether he can appeal against extradition

Watch from outside London’s High Court on Tuesday 26 March as Julian Assange faces a further wait to find out whether his final UK bid to appeal over his extradition to the United States can go ahead.

The WikiLeaks founder faces prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said that Mr Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, while ruling against him on all other issues.

But later that year, US authorities won their High Court bid to overturn this block, paving the way towards his extradition.

During a two-day hearing in February, lawyers for the 52-year-old asked for the go-ahead to challenge the original judge’s dismissal of other parts of his case to prevent his extradition.

And in a judgment on Tuesday, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson dismissed most of Mr Assange’s legal arguments but said that unless assurances were given by the US, he would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds.

The judges said the American authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final decision to be made in late May.