Judge to rule Feb 6 on bid to scrap Assange arrest warrant

A British judge says she will rule next month on whether to scrap a U.K. arrest warrant for the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a move that would free him to leave the Ecuadorean embassy after more than five years.

Assange’s lawyers went to court Friday to argue that the warrant serves no purpose because he is no longer wanted for questioning in Sweden over alleged sex offenses.

Assange has been holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy since he took refuge there in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden. Swedish prosecutors were investigating allegations of sexual assault and rape made by two women in 2010.

But prosecutors dropped the case last year, saying there was no prospect of bringing Assange to Sweden in the foreseeable future.

Assange still faces arrest if he leaves the embassy — for jumping bail in 2012.

Lawyer Mark Summers told Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the arrest warrant had “lost its purpose and its function.”

Assange’s attorney’s also said in court papers that five years in conditions “akin to imprisonment, without access to adequate medical care or sunlight” had left his mental and physical health “in serious peril.”

Judge Emma Arbuthnot said that evidence presented to the court said Assange’s health issues included “a terrible bad tooth, frozen shoulder and depression.”

British prosecutors are opposing the removal of the warrant, saying Assange shouldn’t be immune from the law simply because he has managed to evade justice for a long time.

The judge said she would deliver her ruling on Feb. 6.

If she rules in Assange’s favor he will be free to leave the embassy without being arrested on the British warrant.

But Assange suspects there is a secret U.S. indictment against him for WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked classified American documents, and that the U.S. authorities will seek his extradition.

Earlier this month Ecuador said it had granted the Australian-born hacker citizenship, as it tried to unblock the stalemate that has kept Assange as its houseguest for five-and-a-half years.

It also asked Britain to grant him diplomatic status. Britain refused, saying “the way to resolve this issue is for Julian Assange to leave the embassy to face justice.”

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Afrin’s Kurds: ‘We will never abandon our homes’

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Six days ago, the Turkish military and allied Syrian rebel factions launched an air and ground offensive on the Kurdish-controlled border region of Afrin.

The Turkish government said the aim was to drive out members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which it considers an extension of a Kurdish rebel group it has fought for decades.

The Turkish-led forces so far have made limited territorial gains, but the fierce fighting and bombardment of the enclave is reported to have left dozens of people dead and forced thousands of civilians to flee their homes.

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Hamrin Habash, a 22-year-old English literature graduate who lives in the city of Afrin, told the BBC that she had noticed many displaced people arriving from border villages since the start of the Turkish offensive.

“Some of the people who I have met are already refugees from Arab towns controlled by the Turkish-backed groups and Isis [Islamic State group, or IS],” she said.

“They ran away from them and they came to Afrin because this was a safe place. Now they have had to run away again from Turkish-backed groups.”

Ms Habash also dismissed the Turkey government’s assertion that its air and artillery strikes have only targeted “terrorists” and not civilians.

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A manager at Afrin’s hospital told her on Thursday afternoon that almost 40 civilians had been killed and 128 others injured, she recalled.

“Unfortunately, I know a family who was killed,” she added. “They were really nice people. They ran from [IS] only to die here in a Turkish air strike.”

Ms Habash said other villages around Afrin, which is 13km (8 miles) from the frontline, had also been bombed, including Turandah, near where she lives.

“We have to take shelter inside our buildings’ basements every time the Turkish jets bomb the area.”

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She said she had no fear as long as the YPG and its allies were defending Afrin, but was “afraid for the lives of my family, friends and everyone in the city”.

“If these Islamic groups arrived here, there would be a different situation. There would no longer be the secular Afrin that we are used to living in,” she added, referring to Islamist rebel factions involved in the Turkish offensive and those in control of the neighbouring province of Idlib, to the south.

Kurdish leaders have appealed to the other world powers involved in the Syrian conflict to protect Afrin’s more than 320,000 residents.

But the United States – which has heavily relied on an alliance led by the YPG to fight IS on the ground in eastern Syria – has only urged its Nato ally Turkey to “de-escalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilians casualties”.

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Russia, a key ally of the Syrian government, meanwhile withdrew its military observers from Afrin before the Turkish offensive began and is effectively allowing Turkish warplanes to use Syrian airspace to bomb the Kurdish enclave.

“I blame everyone. Nato, Russia and the US,” Ms Habash said.

“We have fought extremist groups in defence of the whole world. And now look what’s happened? They let Turkey attack us for its delusional, expansionist dream.”

But she insisted: “We will never abandon our homes. Turkey wants to ethnically cleanse the Kurds and we will not let them do that.”

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