A London court denied the US authorities extradition of an Australian journalist and the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange charges of violating the espionage law, reports Reuters .
The decision on Monday, January 4, was made by Judge Vanessa Baraitser. She refused to allow Assange’s extradition to the United States out of fears that he might commit suicide. US lawyers are expected to appeal.
The American Justice Department filed 17 charges against Assange in May 2019, adding one more later. If extradited to the United States, the founder of WikiLeaks could face up to 175 years in prison. The current American president Donald Trump claimed that he was ready to pardon Assange if he named the source from which he received the texts of letters from the hacked servers Democratic Party in 2016
In 2012, fearing extradition to Sweden over rape charges (the case was dropped in 2019), Assange applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. There he was continuously for almost seven years. Assange is currently serving a prison sentence in the UK for violating bail conditions.