Assange, the trial in London on the controversial extradition to the USA restarts

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07 September 2020The crucial phase of merit of the trial on Julian Assange's extradition request to the US has opened before the London court of Old Bailey.

Preliminary hearings began in February, then everything was blocked due to the coronavirus emergency.

The proceeding will have to establish, with an appealable first instance verdict, expected in 4 weeks, whether the co-founder of WikiLeaks is destined to be handed over by the British authorities to the American ones.

Julian Assange is present in the courtroom, outside dozens of supporters protest against the British judiciary and ask for no to extradition.

The Australian activist, pursued for years by Washington, is called into question in the United States with 18 counts (17 of which for espionage) for having disseminated, since 2010, through WikiLeaks and various international newspapers, thousands and thousands of confidential documents military and diplomats denouncing war crimes attributed to US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

in the case of a conviction in the United States, the 49 year old Julian Assange would risk a sentence of 175 years.

Authorities accuse him of violating the Espionage Act, used for the first time against the media dissemination of secret documents.

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After 7 years as a refugee in the London embassy of Ecuador and after being "dumped" from Quito, the founder of WikiLeaks has been in the Belmarsh maximum security prison since April.

Assange has already served all the charges with the British justice.

During the years he spent in the diplomatic office, as it turned out in recent months, he had two children with an activist who became his new partner.