A British High Court ruled on Friday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face 18 charges, including violation of the espionage act.
U.K. court says Julian Assange fit to be extradited to US
On Friday, a British High Court ruled that Australian Julian Assange, the 50-year-old founder of WikiLeaks, is fit to be extradited to the United States to face trial on 18 charges, including breaking the Espionage Act, NBC reported.
The BBC reported that the United States has won its appeal against a U.K. ruling from January that previously found Assange unfit to be extradited to America due to concerns over his mental health.
Assange wasn’t present for the hearing and is presently being held at Belmarsh Prison in London, where he has been held since April 2019 after the Ecuadorian Embassy revoked his political asylum, the Washington Post reported.
How soon will Assange be extradited to the United States?
Assange still has a final appeal available to him. Stella Moris, his former attorney, and his partner and the mother of his two children, said they will file a final appeal to the British Supreme Court.
However, the court will only hear the case if it believes it involves a point of law “of general public importance.”
The appeal process is likely to take weeks or months.
Assange has one other move available should the British Supreme Court court declined to hear his final appeal. Assange could seek a stay of extradition from the European Court of Human Rights. However, this is considered a substantial legal hurdle.
What is Julian Assange accused of?
On April 11, 2019, the day of his arrest in London, Assange was initially charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, a relatively minor crime with a maximum sentence of five years. But on May 23, 2019, the U.S. indicted Assange on 17 new charges related to the espionage act of 1917, according to Wikipedia.
Among the crimes the United States has accused Assange of are unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense, publishing classified documents on WikiLeaks containing the unredacted names of human sources in Iraq and Afghanistan, and actively seeking classified U.S. information, and encouraging Chelsea Manning to provide more information and agreeing to crack passwords on Department of Defense computers.
On May 23, 2019, a federal grand jury returned an 18-Count indictment against Assange. According to the US Justice Department:
“The superseding indictment alleges that Assange was complicit with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, in unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense. Specifically, the superseding indictment alleges that Assange conspired with Manning.
If convicted, Assange faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count, except for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
