A court in the United Kingdom has denied a request from US officials to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Assange is being charged for illegally obtaining and sharing classified material related to national security.
Assange had been facing 18 counts tied to charges dating from 2010. He is accused by the US government of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the US Army.
On 11 April 2019, Assange’s asylum was withdrawn following a series of disputes with the Ecuadorian authorities. The police were invited into the embassy, and he was arrested.
The US government alleged a coordinated effort to compromise its computer networks, and to obtain and publish classified documents related to national security.
The judge’s order today, Monday, December 4 allows Assange to continue to evade US law enforcement, an effort that’s included spending seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy. He was expelled from the embassy in April and was sent to London’s Belmarsh prison.
Assange would face a maximum of 175 years in prison, if convicted of all charges in the US.
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
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