Julian Assange

Latest news on Wikileaks' Julian Assange – the subject of controversial US extradition attempts – aggregated from mainstream, alternative and independent sources.

Assange is the founder of Wikileaks, a non-profit organisation set up with the aim of exposing state secrets it is argued should be in the public domain. The publications have included revelations of what appeared to be war crimes, while the US state apparatus has argued the leaks put lives at risk.

In 2010 Sweden issued an arrest warrant for Assange, which Assange said was based on fabricated allegations to facilitate his extradition from Sweden to the US for publishing the sensitive documents.

The case was dropped in April 2019, by which time Assange had spent seven years confined in Ecuador's London embassy, having been granted asylum on the grounds of political persecution. Assange was arrested by the British police in 2019, and has been confined in Belmarsh prison as he fights a US extradition case. A British judge ruled against his extradition in January 2021, only for the US to win an appeal. In March 2022, the UK Supreme Court refused Assange permission to appeal this ruling, and in June 2022 the UK home secretary approved his extradition.

Amnesty International has said: "If extradited to the US, Julian Assange could face trial on charges under the Espionage Act and under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He would also face a real risk of serious human rights violations due to detention conditions that could amount to torture or other ill-treatment – including prolonged solitary confinement. Julian Assange is the first publisher to face charges under the Espionage Act."

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