Security News > 2021 > January > British Court Rejects U.S. Request to Extradite WikiLeaks' Julian Assange
A British court has rejected the U.S. government's request to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the country on charges pertaining to illegally obtaining and sharing classified material related to national security.
In a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court today, Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition on the grounds that Assange is a suicide risk and extradition to the U.S. prison system would be oppressive.
The documents include "Approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables," per the U.S. Department of Justice, which accused Assange of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to disclose sensitive information related to the national defense.
A federal grand jury last May indicted Assange on 18 counts related to unlawfully obtaining, receiving, and disclosing classified information, and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion to crack a password hash stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network, a U.S. government network used to transmit classified documents and communications.
In May 2019, he was found guilty in a U.K. court of breaching bail conditions and sentenced to 50 weeks, following which the aforementioned indictment was returned in the U.S. If convicted, Assange faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count with the exception of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, for which he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The U.S. non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation tweeted, "The case against Julian Assange is the most dangerous threat to U.S. press freedom in decades. This is a huge relief to anyone who cares about the rights of journalists."