The High Court in London allowed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to appeal against his extradition to the United States on Monday (May 20). The US government has made several attempts in recent years to have Assange face trial on its soil over charges of espionage. The recent order comes as a relief for Assange, who has spent the last few years in the UK in confinement to evade extradition attempts. In the late 2000s, his website WikiLeaks made public thousands of pieces of confidential documents linked to the US military. These revelations are at the centre of the criminal charges against him now. Here is his story. Who is Julian Assange and what is WikiLeaks? Assange, 52, is an Australian citizen. Early on in his life, he displayed an interest in computer hacking. These skills were put to use in a website he founded in 2006, called WikiLeaks. It describes itself as a media organisation that publishes confidential government and corporate documents for maintaining transparency. Assange shot to global prominence in a few years, thanks to his website. Some of its most notable “leaks” were documents from the US government, saying the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2010, WikiLeaks leaked more than 250,000 classified cables from US embassies to prominent media outlets, such as The Guardian and The New York Times. What was the US government’s response? In 2019, the US government indicted Assange on 18 charges for violating the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It alleged that WikiLeaks obtained its information illegally and sharing it endangered the lives of its officials in foreign countries. He was also alleged to have “conspired” with US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, according to an Associated Press report. Manning was posted in Iraq and helped leak documents to WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years in jail following a court martial, but the term was commuted and she was released in 2017. Since 2019, attempts have been made to extradite Assange and have him face trial in the US. However, Assange and his lawyers have argued against this. What has happened to Assange since the leaks were made? Around the time of the US documents’ leaks, Assange was in Sweden. Here, two women associated with WikiLeaks accused him of sexual assault and molestation. He denied the charges and claimed they were part of American attempts for extradition. In a bid to escape them, he fled to London. Swedish police then issued an international arrest warrant against him. Assange surrendered to police in the UK and was detained, but later granted bail. However, a district court ruled for his extradition to Sweden. Fearing arrest, Assange entered the Embassy of Ecuador in 2012 to seek asylum, which was granted by the South American country. For the next few years, Assange stayed there in a house arrest-like situation and attempted to appeal against the Sweden case. Over time, he began having run-ins with the Ecuador government, leading to his expulsion from the embassy and revocation of the asylum in 2019. This led to dramatic scenes, with the London police sweeping in to arrest Assange for “failing to surrender to the court” over a warrant issued in 2012. By late 2019, the Swedish cases against him had been dropped due to multiple factors, including the evidence being dated. However, Assange now had the US case to worry about. How has the US attempted to extradite Assange? Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for his actions in the UK in 2012. Since then, he has been lodged in a high-security prison near London. Also in 2019, the US indicted him and began extradition proceedings with the UK government. A long legal battle thus began, with Assange appealing against the extradition at various levels of the UK judicial system, and the US government countering them. The main issue here was whether Assange would be treated humanely and receive a fair trial upon reaching the US, if extradited. Assange’s lawyers said he needed protection under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which safeguards free speech, because WikiLeaks and its releases constituted journalistic work. The US government argued that Assange’s actions “went way beyond those of a journalist gathering information, amounting to an attempt to solicit, steal and indiscriminately publish classified government documents,” the AP report said. Britain’s Supreme Court refused to grant him permission to appeal against his extradition in 2022. This led the British government to order the extradition. However, Assange appealed against it. A High Court judge then ruled in the US government’s favour, leading to what was termed a ‘final bid’ from Assange’s lawyers. Finally, the UK High Court ruled on Monday said that he has grounds to challenge the UK government’s extradition order, meaning he can now launch further appeals. It is believed the case could now continue for a number of years.
