A final court decision is being awaited with bated breaths as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange fights to avoid an extradition to the US on espionage charges.
The Australian journalist and ethical hacker is facing up to 175 years in jail if extradited.
Who is Julian Assange?
Julian Assange is an editor and founder of WikiLeaks, a source that provides news leaks and classified information obtained by anonymous sources.
WikiLeaks rose to prominence in 2010 as it published a series of leaks provided by a US Army intelligence analyst named Chelsea Manning.
The information included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, and Cablegate.
Fearing the US government, Assange took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London.
He was granted asylum by Ecuador due to fears of political persecution and extradition to the United States.
Assange remained in the Embassy of Ecuador in London for approximately seven years.
He was granted Ecuadorian citizenship in 2018 but the asylum was withdrawn following a series of disputes with the Ecuadorian authorities in 2019.
Assange has two children with lawyer and now-wife Stella Morris while living at the Ecuadorian embassy.
The pair tied the knot in March 2022.
He was previously married to Teresa Assange from 1989 to 1999, with whom he has one son.
What did he do?
Other than leaking thousands of classified US government information in 2010 and 2011, Assange is also accused of leaking emails Hillary Clinton sent and received when she was Secretary of State during the 2016 presidential election campaign, according to CNN.
The US Intelligence concluded that the Russian government carried out a hacking campaign as part of broader efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States elections.
In 2018, 12 Russian intelligence officers were indicted on criminal charges by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The charges against the Russians included carrying out the computer hacking and working with WikiLeaks and other organizations to spread stolen documents.
What are the new charges against him?
In May of 2019, he was found guilty of breaching the Bail Act and was sentenced to serve 50 weeks in a UK prison.
The US government also unsealed an indictment against Assange for alleged computer intrusion, related to the leaks provided by Manning.
Towards the end of May 2019, the US government also charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917.
The Department of Justice “broadened” the charges against him in June, claiming he conspired with the web activist group Anonymous.
If convicted, he would have been held in isolation at the maximum-security Supermax jail in Colorado, described as a “fate worse than death” by a former warden.
Where is he now?
Assange is facing a decisive two-day court case in the UK to decide whether he is to be extradited to the United States on spying charges.
Those charges carry maximum penalties of 175 years, but the real danger is that he may suffer an inadvertent death penalty instead.
The High Court of London is expected to decide by Wednesday (February 21) on whether it should block the 52 year-old’s extradition.
Assange will not attend court due to illness, his lawyers said.
If he succeeds, his case will go to a full appeal.
If he loses, the only remaining block to his extradition lies with the European Court of Human Rights where he already has an application lodged.
In June 2022, Britain’s then home secretary Priti Patel approved the extradition, and the following year a judge at London’s high court turned down his request for an appeal.
“In this case, the U.K. courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr. Assange,” a Home Office spokesperson said, via NBC News.
“Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights.”
