Julian Assange has been granted the right to appeal his extradition to the US
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was granted the right to challenge his extradition to the United States, enhancing his legal standing. Following the termination of his asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange has been in UK custody since 2019 due to an unrelated Swedish case. UK authorities apprehended him for bail violation, sentencing him to 50 weeks in prison. The information provided gives a detailed summary of Julian Assange’s situation regarding his extradition to the United States, the termination of his asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy, his custody in the UK, and the reasons for his arrest and sentencing.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted the right to challenge his extradition to the United States, significantly improving his legal position.
Assange has been held by U.K. authorities since 2019 after Ecuador ended his seven-year asylum stay in its Embassy in London over an unrelated rape case in Sweden, which was later dropped. U.K. police dragged Assange out of the Embassy and sentenced him to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012. However, in May 2019, the U.S. indicted Assange on 18 charges related to WikiLeaks’s publishing of over half a million classified documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If convicted, he faces 175 years in prison. He has spent the past five years battling his extradition, which has been repeatedly delayed.
His extradition was first delayed in January 2021 after a U.K. judge ruled that he was likely to kill himself in harsher U.S. prison conditions. Rulings went back and forth in the following years, with the main concern being whether Assange could be guaranteed a fair trial.
The Australian dissident’s latest victory came on Monday when his last-ditch attempt to prevent his extradition succeeded. A new trial date hasn’t been given yet.
Assange’s prosecution has become a source of major controversy, with battling concerns over free speech and national security. His supporters hail him as a hero of free speech and government transparency, while critics deride him as a tool of foreign intelligence agencies who endangered U.S. intelligence agents.
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Supporters and opponents in the U.S. defy a typical party binary, with Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the debate.
In April, President Joe Biden said he was “considering” ending the prosecution of Assange.
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