Julian Assange resumes his war in a London court on Monday to be extradited to the United States to face criminal fees for the activities of his WikiLeaks website, after months of delay due to the coronavirus blockade.
The U.S. government accuses Assange, 49, of Australian descent, of conspiring to hack computers and violate an espionage law in connection with the publication of confidential cables through WikiLeaks in 2010-2011.
Assange is recognized through his admirers as a free speech advocate who has denounced American abuses of power.His critics say that by publishing un redacted documents, he recklessly endangered the lives of intelligence resources in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
He also raised a more recent complaint about WikiLeaks’ publication of the Democratic National Committee’s stolen presidential crusade of stolen documents in 2016, which damaged candidate Hillary Clinton and denies accusations through US investigators that WikiLeaks received documents from Russian hackers.judicial process.
Assange made headlines abroad in 2010 when WikiLeaks released a U.S. Army video featuring a 2007 attack via Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, adding two reuters news crew members.He then published vast treasures of U.S. army documents and diplomatic cables.
“POLITICAL” CHARGES
His legal team in London argues that america’s accusations against him are political and pose a risk to press freedom.They also said he could devote himself to suicide if he is sent to the United States, where he could face years in prison.
Lawyers implemented bail for him in March, arguing that he was vulnerable to coronavirus.But the court ordered him to hold on, posing a great threat of escape.
Assange’s legal difficulties in Britain date back to 2010, when he began fighting to extradite him to Sweden to answer questions about allegations of sexual assault, which have since been withdrawn.In June 2012, faced with imminent extradition, he sought safe haven at the Embassy of Ecuador.
He spent seven years locked up there. His partner, Stella Morris, revealed this year that he had been the father of two young men at the embassy.
After fighting with his hosts and having Ecuador revoke his asylum, he left the embassy in April 2019 and served a brief British criminal sentence for violating bail conditions.
It remains in a criminal situation pending the final results of the U.S. extradition request.The hearings were held in February and were scheduled to resume in May, but were postponed due to a closure to curb COVID-19.
The court will now hear from witnesses about the elements of their defence: that the case has a political motivation, that their intellectual aptitude is in danger, that situations in American prisons violate British human rights law, and that he and his lawyers were spied on while at the embassy.
Assange will provide at February hearings and is expected to appear in court on Monday.