06-08-2023, 08:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-08-2023, 08:40 PM by awakened53.)
U.K. Judge Denies Julian Assange’s Appeal to Block U.S. Extradition
A High Court judge in the United Kingdom has reportedly denied an appeal from Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange to block his extradition to the United States, where an 18-count indictment awaits him.
The Daily Mail’s Chris Pollard and Rebecca Camber first reported on the High Court’s private ruling, which is said to have come down on Monday. While Assange’s legal representation has until the end of the week to appeal the ruling, his lawyers have signaled he will not contest it, the report says.
In May 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury returned an 18-count superseding indictment against Assange for his alleged role in comprising troves of classified information. Specifically, the DOJ alleges that “Assange was complicit with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, in unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense.”
Assange and the Wikileaks databases allegedly received nearly half a million “activity reports” from Manning relating to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as Guantanamo Bay detainee briefs, and “[m]any of these documents were classified at the Secret level,” the DOJ asserted.
Assange had lived at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012 under diplomatic asylum and gained citizenship in the country before officials at the embassy invited British authorities inside to apprehend him in April 2019, months after it was reported the DOJ had a sealed indictment against him.
Read more: U.K. Judge Denies Julian Assange’s Appeal to Block U.S. Extradition
A High Court judge in the United Kingdom has reportedly denied an appeal from Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange to block his extradition to the United States, where an 18-count indictment awaits him.
The Daily Mail’s Chris Pollard and Rebecca Camber first reported on the High Court’s private ruling, which is said to have come down on Monday. While Assange’s legal representation has until the end of the week to appeal the ruling, his lawyers have signaled he will not contest it, the report says.
In May 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury returned an 18-count superseding indictment against Assange for his alleged role in comprising troves of classified information. Specifically, the DOJ alleges that “Assange was complicit with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, in unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense.”
Assange and the Wikileaks databases allegedly received nearly half a million “activity reports” from Manning relating to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as Guantanamo Bay detainee briefs, and “[m]any of these documents were classified at the Secret level,” the DOJ asserted.
Assange had lived at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012 under diplomatic asylum and gained citizenship in the country before officials at the embassy invited British authorities inside to apprehend him in April 2019, months after it was reported the DOJ had a sealed indictment against him.
Read more: U.K. Judge Denies Julian Assange’s Appeal to Block U.S. Extradition