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The U.S. authorities mentioned it will enchantment the choice. Assange’s attorneys plan to ask for his launch from a London jail the place he has been held for greater than a 12 months and a half.
U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage costs and one cost of laptop misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked navy and diplomatic paperwork a decade in the past. The costs carry a most sentence of 175 years in jail.
Lawyers for the 49-year-old Australian argue that he was appearing as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing leaked paperwork that uncovered U.S. navy wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The choose, nonetheless, mentioned Assange’s actions, if proved, would “amount to offenses in this jurisdiction that would not be protected by his right to freedom of speech.”
But she mentioned Assange suffered from average to extreme scientific despair that may be exacerbated by the isolation he would possible face in U.S. jail.
The protection argued throughout a three-week listening to within the fall that extradition threatens Assange’s human rights as a result of he dangers “a grossly disproportionate sentence” and detention in “draconian and inhumane conditions” that may exacerbate his extreme despair and different psychological well being issues.
Lawyers for the U.S. authorities deny that Assange is being prosecuted merely for publishing the leaked paperwork, saying the case “is in large part based upon his unlawful involvement” within the theft of the diplomatic cables and navy recordsdata by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
The prosecution of Assange has been condemned by journalists and human rights teams, who say it undermines free speech around the globe.
“The mere fact that this case has made it to court, let alone gone on this long, is an historic, large-scale attack on freedom of speech,” mentioned WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson. “This is a battle that impacts every individual’s proper to know and is being fought collectively.”
Assange’s authorized troubles started in 2010, when he was arrested in London on the request of Sweden, which wished to query him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two ladies. In 2012, to keep away from being despatched to Sweden, Assange sought refuge contained in the Ecuadorian Embassy, the place he was past the attain of U.Ok. and Swedish authorities — but additionally successfully a prisoner, unable to go away the tiny diplomatic mission in London’s tony Knightsbridge space.
The relationship between Assange and his hosts ultimately soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police instantly arrested him for leaping bail in 2012.
Sweden dropped the intercourse crimes investigations in November 2019 as a result of a lot time had elapsed, however Assange stays in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, delivered to court docket in a jail van all through his extradition listening to.
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