Julian Assange Faces Court Showdown Over US Extradition

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is set to face what could be his final court hearing on Tuesday over his attempts to avoid extradition to the U.S. on espionage charges related to the publication of classified documents.

The High Court in London will hear arguments this week as to whether the 52-year-old can ask an appeals court can block his transfer to the States to stand trial there—potentially the final chapter of a protracted legal attempt to remain in the U.K.

If the court rules in Assange's favor he may still face extradition, but litigation in Britain would continue. If the High Court does not allow the appeal to go forward, he is likely to be transferred to the U.S.

His wife, Stella Assange—with whom he has two sons and who he married while in prison—said on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday that if her husband was extradited, "he will die in a U.S. prison cell."

Assange was indicted in 2019 on 18 charges, including 17 counts of espionage and one count of misuse of a computer.

The charges relate to the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2010, including diplomatic cables and military files concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The files were disclosed by former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who was imprisoned for violations of the Espionage Act between 2010 and 2017, and with whom Assange is accused of conspiring to hack a Pentagon computer system.

Among the documents published by WikiLeaks was the revelation that in 2007, an American Apache helicopter air strike on Baghdad killed around a dozen civilians as well as two Reuters journalists.

While U.S. prosecutors argue the disclosures put the safety of intelligence sources in Iraq and Afghanistan under threat, Assange and his supporters say he acted as a journalist to expose wrongdoing on the part of the U.S. military.

A British judge initially blocked his extradition on the grounds that stark American prison conditions were likely to lead him to take his own life, but this was reversed after the U.S. gave assurances he would not experience harsh treatment.

Assange has already faced confinement of one form or another for around 12 years. He sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 while facing being extradited to Sweden as part of an investigation into rape allegations against him that was subsequently dropped.

He was arrested in 2019 after the Ecuadorian government withdrew its offer of political refuge and subsequently jailed for failing to surrender for bail when he initially started living in the embassy. He is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison in southeast London.