A British court ruled on Monday that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, 49, cannot be extradited to the United States to face trial on charges of violating the Espionage Act, saying he would be at extreme risk of suicide in a U.S. jail (article available here).
Assange was indicted in 2019 on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act and conspiring to hack government computers in 2010 and 2011.
The court found there was evidence of a risk to Mr. Assange’s health if he were to face trial in the United States, noting that she found “Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial.” The court ruled that the extradition is denied because “it would be unjust and oppressive by reason of Mr. Assange’s mental condition,” pointing to conditions he would most likely be held under in the United States.
Assange's attorneys are expected to ask for his imminent release from prison as they await a likely appeal from the U.S. to the U.K.'s High Court, The Washington Post reported.
Mr. Assange, who is Australian, rose to prominence in 2010 by publishing documents provided by the former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. He then took refuge at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to escape extradition to Sweden, where he faced an inquiry into rape allegations that was later dropped. In the meantime, he kept running WikiLeaks as a self-proclaimed political refugee. He spent seven years there before his arrest by the British police in 2019.