The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is getting closer to extradition to the United States – which wants to try him for espionage – after a formal decision by British justice on Wednesday April 20.
Westminster Magistrates Court in London has formally issued an extradition order and it is now up to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel to approve it.
'Put simply, I am required to send your case to the Minister of State for decision,' Magistrate Paul Goldspring told a short seven-minute hearing.
The 50-year-old WikiLeaks founder was not physically present in court but followed the administrative proceedings via video link.
His lawyers can still appeal to the High Court.
Unless appealed, Julian Assange will be extradited within 28 days of the Minister's decision to order the extradition.
“Journalists will have to look over their shoulder”
Outside the court, a few dozen supporters of Julian Assange had gathered on Wednesday with placards proclaiming "Do not extradite Assange, journalism is not a crime" or "May freedom of the press rest in peace".
Former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was also on hand to defend the Australian.
"He did absolutely nothing more than tell the truth to the world," he told protesters.
“If #JulianAssange is extradited to the United States, journalists everywhere will have to watch over their shoulders if they publish information harmful to American interests”, also reacted on Twitter the human rights organization Amnesty. International.
Julian Assange has been held for three years in the maximum security prison in Belmarsh, near London, where he married his fiancee, Stella Moris, last month.
She had two children with him, two little boys conceived when he lived at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The founder of WikiLeaks spent seven years in this embassy, where he took refuge in 2012 while he was on bail.
He then feared extradition to the United States or to Sweden, where he was the subject of rape proceedings since abandoned.
175 years in prison incurred
Julian Assange was finally arrested by British police in April 2019 and imprisoned.
His wife, a South African lawyer in her 30s, last month pleaded with Priti Patel to prevent his extradition, asking her to put an end to this "political affair".
She attended the court hearing on Wednesday.
Caught in a long legal saga, the Australian is wanted by American justice, which wants to try him for the dissemination, from 2010, of more than 700,000 classified documents on American military and diplomatic activities, in particular in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Prosecuted in particular under legislation against espionage, Julian Assange faces 175 years in prison, in a case denounced by human rights organizations as a serious attack on the freedom of the press.
On March 14, he had seen one of his last hopes of avoiding his extradition disappear, with the refusal of the British Supreme Court to examine his appeal.
With AFP
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