What if Julian Assange had fled to Belgium?
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been trying to avoid trial in the US for years. That is why he has been staying anywhere and everywhere since Wikileaks was founded.
In 2010, however, he was still found and arrested in London after Sweden issued an arrest warrant following a complaint by two women against Assange, for rape.
When he was released under bail as part of those proceedings, he fled to the Ecuadorian embassy, believing that Sweden - once he arrived back there - would extradite him to the US.
After nine years, Sweden stopped the prosecution and Assange left the embassy - at the embassy's own request. Yet he was detained again, this time at the request of the US.
On 20/04/2022, a British judge finally decided that the extradition to the US could be granted.
With this information in mind, we asked ourselves the question: what if Julian Assange had been found in Belgium and the U.S. request was directed to Belgium?
It is therefore these questions that will be the subject of this contribution.
Extradition treaty between Belgium and the U.S.
The main legal source, regarding an extradition between the US and Belgium, concerns the Agreement of 27/04/1987 on Extradition between the Kingdom of Belgium and the United States of America.
It follows from Article 2.1 of this extradition treaty that only crimes that can lead to a maximum term of imprisonment of more than one year in both countries can give rise to an extradition.
So whether an extradition will be able to take place effectively depends mainly on the actual crime that will be prosecuted in the US.
Furthermore, Article 3 of the treaty is also often important, under which Belgium cannot be obliged to extradite its own nationals.
In addition, the treaty states, in Article 4, that extradition will not be granted if Belgium considers that political reasons underlie the extradition request.
Article 6 then states that when the relevant crime carries the death penalty in the U.S., Belgium may refuse extradition. Incidentally, according to the same article, this is also the case when there are humanitarian reasons in general.
Finally, Article 7.3. of the extradition treaty states that an "indictment" (or "bill of indictment") will have to be issued by U.S. authorities before extradition can proceed at all.
Hypothesis: extradition of Assange from Belgium to U.S.
In the hypothetical situation that Julian Assange would have fled to our country, the question would undoubtedly arise as to whether Belgium - as opposed to the UK - would (be able to) stop the extradition.
In this regard, Articles 2, 3 and 7 do not seem so relevant, considering Assange does not have Belgian citizenship and he faces a 175-year sentence in the U.S., based on 18 official suspicions (including one suspicion of hacking, which is also punishable in Belgium).
On the other hand, those 175 years of possible imprisonment are further based primarily on the so-called Espionage Act. This aspect undoubtedly leads to an argument on the basis of which it could be considered that there are political reasons in this situation and the extradition could thus be refused.
Incidentally, this is also one of the arguments raised by Assange's lawyers during the UK proceedings, given that the US-UK extradition treaty also contains such a clause.
In the UK, however, that argument has been unsuccessful ...
All that remains is the humanitarian clause, which was also invoked and rejected in the UK.
The difference with the UK, however, is that in the extradition treaty between Belgium and the US - in addition to the death penalty clause - there is also a clause referring to humanitarian reasons; a term that appears nowhere in the US-UK treaty.
Of course, the question remains whether this particular clause applies to the Assange case, but at least the door would be ajar in Belgium.
If your rendition is requested or you simply want more information about this, please feel free to contact us at info@bannister.be or 03/369.28.00.
