US Wins Appeal in Case to Extradite Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange

The U.S. won an appeal in its case to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the United Kingdom.

The U.K.’s High Court ruled Friday that Assange could be returned to the U.S. where he will face multiple charges related to espionage and hacking, reversing a lower court’s decision blocking his extradition.

Assange’s fiancee Stella Morris said she plans to appeal the decision as soon as possible, calling the decision a “grave miscarriage of justice,” CNBC reported.

“For the past two and a half years, Julian has remained in Belmarsh Prison and, in fact, he has been detained since 7 December 2010 in one form or another,” Morris said outside of the High Court on Friday, according to Sky News. “For how long can this go on?”

Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett and Lord Justice Tim Holroyde said they had made their decision due to assurances offered by the U.S. that Assange would not be held in a maximum security prison, that he would be allowed to apply to serve his sentence in his home country of Australia and that he will receive “appropriate clinical and psychological treatment.”

Assange was charged with conspiring to hack into U.S. computers for the purposes of publishing confidential information, and he faces a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Assange had lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, but he was arrested by British authorities in April 2019 for allegedly skipping bail after Ecuadorian authorities evicted him from the embassy.