Assange’s lawyers questioned the United States prosecutors’ promise to stop the death penalty in the U.S. and the transfer to the European Court of Human Rights

The judgement said that if the U.S. government could assure the court that the death penalty wouldn’t apply to Assange, then it wouldn’t need to appeal.

In court on Monday, one of Assange’s lawyers questioned the assurances that have since been made by U.S. prosecutors, pointing out that the separation of powers in the United States meant that the executive branch responsible for charging Assange would be unable to force the judicial branch — in the form of a federal court in Virginia — to accept certain parameters for the trial.

Even if the British courts do not deny his appeal, his lawyers are going to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. There was a need to stop the transfer of the accused person to the US.

That hearing could ultimately lead to his release if judges decide that he would not face the same legal protections in a U.S. court as he would under the British legal system.

Critics of the United States government hailed the decision as a victory, but they warned that the American prosecution efforts were overshadowing press freedom.

Assange faces 18 charges in the US, all but one under the Espionage Act, for publishing classified information related to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A conviction under the act would require prosecutors to demonstrate that Assange not only obtained national defense information but also released it with the intent to injure the United States—a major hurdle for US prosecutors in a case against an award-winning journalist.

Dozens of supporters chanting and using bullhorns attended the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.

The Assange High Court Action Against the U.S. Military Intelligence Charged with 17 Years of Leakage and Publication of National Defense Information

His wife Stella — who originally met him when working on his legal team — had said in a recent interview with Reuters that she was concerned he could have been placed on a plane to the U.S. as soon as this week, where he could theoretically face up to 175 years in prison.

In February, lawyers for Assange submitted nine separate grounds for a possible appeal, but then in March the two High Court judges, Victoria Sharp and Adam Johnson, responded to those requests by saying there was a “real prospect of success” on only three grounds.

In 2010 he gained global attention when his organization, The organization he founded, released hundreds of thousands of classified documents focused on the US military’s activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. wants to charge him with 17 acts of espionage and one count of computer misuse, for an alleged conspiracy to take possession of and then publish national defense information.

Two judges at the High Court in London today said Assange can officially challenge his extradition order from the United Kingdom in the long-running dispute over the leaking and publication of military secrets.

US prosecutors have stated publicly that they expect him to serve no more than five years in jail, but his attorneys say he could face 175 years in prison.

Prosecutors in the US allege that Assange, 52, overstepped his role as a journalist in online conversations with a source, Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, by allegedly offering to help the then-22-year-old private crack a hashed password that could have hypothetically furthered her illicit access to a classified Defense Department network.

Manning, who spent over a year and a half in custody, confessed in 2013 to leaking more than 770,000 documents. The diplomatic cables that were part of the cache were embarrassing for the US diplomats who wrote openly about the behavior of foreign leaders back at home.