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The WikiLeaks founder hopes to know on Monday whether the UK finally decides to extradite him to the United States, which is claiming him for espionage trial and could sentence him to up to 175 years in prison.
The founder of WikiLeaks, the controversial Julian Assange, hopes to find out on Monday whether the British justice system finally decides to extradite him to the United States, which is claiming him for espionage and could sentence him to up to 175 years in prison.
In a case that his defenders denounce as key to press freedom, the 49-year-old Australian will know in a hearing in the London criminal court if Judge Vanessa Baraitser considers the extradition request presented by the US justice to be relevant.
However, his decision may be appealed by both parties, which could prolong the long judicial saga that has surrounded Assange since 2010, shortly after his WikiLeaks website published hundreds of thousands of confidential military and diplomatic documents that put the United States in the dark. more of a bind.
See more: Ten years of WiKileaks, why did you target the US?
Among them was a video showing US helicopter gunships firing at civilians in Iraq in 2007, killing a dozen people in Baghdad, including two journalists from the Reuters news agency.
Before ruling, the English courts carefully examined the US request to ensure that it is not disproportionate or incompatible with human rights.
The hearings in September, after months of delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, were marked by protests outside the courthouse, where supporters of the Australian such as British designer Vivienne Westwood raised banners reading “Imprison war criminals Free Julian Assange! “
“The future of journalism is at stake,” WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson had said.
“Political motivation”
Fearing that Assange, whose physical and mental health seemed very weakened, would take his own life, his sentimental partner, Stella Moris, had delivered in September to the office of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a petition with 800,000 signatures against his extradition.
Held in a high-security London prison since his arrest in April 2019 at the Ecuadorian embassy, where he lived as a refugee for seven years, Assange could face 175 years in prison if the US justice found him guilty of espionage.
Washington reproaches him for having endangered the lives of his informants by publishing secret documents on US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, which revealed acts of torture, civilian deaths and other abuses.
Can read: Assange’s abuses and excesses when he lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London
But for his supporting committee, they are “politically motivated charges” that “represent an unprecedented attack on press freedom.”
The Australian’s defense, coordinated at the international level by former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, denounced in the past that US President Donald Trump wanted to carry out an “exemplary” punishment with him in his “war against investigative journalists” and Assange would not have a fair trial in the United States.
It remains to be seen what will be the attitude of the US president-elect, Democrat Joe Biden, who in a few days will replace Trump in the White House.
So far the United States has defended that Assange is not a journalist but a “hacker” and assured that he helped intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal these classified documents before exposing the material to the eyes of the world.
He also accuses him of having conspired with members of the hacker groups LulzSec and Anonymous and of having had “unauthorized access to a government computer system of a NATO country.”
Assange’s lawyers have been warning for months about the fragile physical and mental state of the Australian, who appeared confused and with difficulties to express himself and was absent from some hearings due to health problems.
