Wikileaks | Will Julian Assange be extradited to the United States? The trial continues in Britain

Litigation The founder of the WikiLeaks leak site Julian Assange52, on possible extradition from Britain to the United States will continue in London’s High Court on Monday at 12 o’clock Finnish time.

Assange is threatened with extradition to the United States. His defense has raised concerns about the extradition, some of which the court found in April to be justified. Representatives of the US administration were given three weeks in April to give assurances that it would treat Assange properly and not face the death penalty. Without bail, Assange is granted leave to appeal.

Assange has been in prison since 2019. Before that, he was hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012.

Provided supreme court decides on extradition, Assange can be extradited from Britain to the United States within 24 hours of the decision, Reuters reports.

“I have a feeling that anything can happen at this point. Julian may be extradited or he may be released,” Assange’s wife Stella Assange told Reuters.

Stella Assange has previously said that her husband’s physical and mental health have deteriorated significantly in prison. According to her, her husband will die if he is extradited to the United States.

Julian Assange led by Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of US secret documents at the beginning of the last decade. They concerned, for example, US operations in Afghanistan and Iran.

In April 2010, WikiLeaks published a video of the US military helicopter attack in Baghdad, where a dozen people died in 2007. Among the victims were a Reuters photographer and his driver.

The Australian-born Assange is facing a total of 18 charges in the United States related to classified documents published by Wikileaks. According to the charges, Assange’s actions have been reckless and endangered national security.

Assange’s supporters have considered the charges a hoax and an attack on journalism and freedom of speech. The termination of the investigation into Assange’s case has been demanded, among others, by the Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese.

Swedish in November 2010, the court ordered Assange’s arrest. He was suspected of rape.

The Swedish police investigated the case for a long time. In 2017, however, the investigation was stopped because, according to the prosecutor, there were no longer any conditions for its continuation. At that time, Assange had already avoided extradition to Sweden for years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Ecuador granted Assange asylum in 2012 and citizenship in 2018.

The preliminary investigation into Assange’s alleged rape was restarted in Sweden in May 2019. The Swedish prosecutor dropped the investigation into Assange’s alleged rape in November of the same year.