Julian Assange has appeal partially accepted in London court, which postpones decision on extradition to the USA | World

The High Court of Justice in London partially accepted this Tuesday (26) the appeal of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, to the extradition request made by the United States government.

In a decision seen as a partial victory for Assange — he could be sentenced to 175 years in prison in the United States — the British Court postponed a possible extradition from Assange to the USA and agreed that your appeal is valid.

In the decision, published this morning, the British judges asked the US government for more information and gave a three week deadline for Washington to present this information.

“Mr. Assange will not be extradited immediately. The court has given the United States government three weeks to provide satisfactory assurances,” the court ruled.

The London Court’s final decision will be the WikiLeaks founder’s last chance to escape extradition to the United States, the country of which he is a citizen.

There, Assange could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for leak 700,000 confidential documents since 2010 about American military and diplomatic activitiesmainly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the identities of people who cooperated with the military in the Middle East were revealed, US officials stated that the leak put lives at risk.

In 2019, the US Department of Justice described the WikiLeaks leaks as “one of the biggest leaks of confidential information in the history of U.S“.

“My client is being prosecuted for carrying out a common journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing confidential information, truthful information and information of clear and important public interest,” Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said in court.

Clair Dobbin, a lawyer representing the United States, in turn, said that Assange published the names of people who “acted as sources of information for the United States.”

In January 2021, a British court initially rejected the extradition request to the United States. However, an American appeal meant that, in December 2021, the British court overturned the first decision and opened the way for extradition – until this week’s trial.

The founder of WikiLeaks had been imprisoned in England since 2019, after spending seven years confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought refuge to avoid extradition on sexual assault charges in Sweden, which were later dropped.

Before the trial, Assange’s wife warned about the 52-year-old Australian’s fragile health.

“His health is deteriorating, physically and mentally. His life is in danger every day he remains in prison and, if he is extradited, he will die,” Stella Assange said last week.