A day after former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was convicted on five of six counts of disorderly conduct for lying to police about being the victim of a racist, homophobic attack, a British appeals court overturned a lower court ruling Friday that could lead to WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange being extradited to the United States. Prosecutors called Thursday’s verdict “a resounding message by the jury” that Smollett recruited two brothers to fake an attack so it could be recorded by a surveillance camera and posted on social media for publicity.
“I took this case because I actually thought if it was true that he lied to the Chicago Police Department about something like a hate crime, when we’ve got all these social issues in our country…I thought that was bad conduct,” special prosecutor Dan Webb said after Smollett was convicted. “It was not insignificant. I thought it was serious criminal misconduct that needed to be approached and have a public trial about it.”
In his post-verdict remarks, defense attorney Nenye Uche disagreed with the last part of Webb’s statement.
“Why was so much money and resources spent re-prosecuting in this case when we have thousands and thousands of people dying, hundreds of people dying in Chicago from gun violence,” Uche asked. “Why aren’t resources being diverted to those situations?”
Judge James Linn set a post-trial hearing for the now-convicted Smollett for Jan. 27. Linn said he would schedule Smollett’s sentencing at a later date.
While the U.S. focused on Smollett being convicted, across the pond, officials were deciding whether Assange’s mental health was in appropriate shape for Assange to be extradited.
The High Court in London ruled that it was, overturning a lower court ruling. The court also said promises the U.S. had made were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely within its criminal justice system.
“There is no reason why this court should not accept the assurances as meaning what they say,″ the High Court stated in its ruling. “There is no basis for assuming that the USA has not given the assurances in good faith.”
Assange’s fiancé Stella Moris called the decision a “grave miscarriage of justice”. She said Assange’s lawyers would seek to appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court.
“Julian exposed the crimes of CIA torturers, of CIA killers,” Morris said Friday. “And now we know that those CIA killers were planning to kill him too. How can this court, how can these courts, approve an extradition request under these conditions? How can they accept an extradition to the country that plotted to kill Julian, that plotted to kill a publisher because of what he published?”
British Home Secretary Priti Patel, who oversees law enforcement in the U.K., will make the final decision on whether to extradite Assange.
