The High Court in the UK has allowed the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the USA. As per reports, the government of the USA has won its appeal in the UK High Court against the order of a lower court, which had said in January that Assange should not be extradited to the USA.
Assange’s fiance Stella Morris has called the High Court’s decision a ‘grave miscarriage of justice’.
Earlier today, High Court judge Timothy Holroyde announced that the US government’s appeal is allowed. As per reports, though the decision ups the possibility for Assange’s extradition to the USA where he is facing life imprisonment, his defence lawyers still have the right to appeal against the verdict.
Assange being persecuted by USA govt for exposing warcrimes
Ironically, this verdict has come on International Human Rights day. The USA, the nation which lectures every other nation on earth about human rights and press freedom, is persecuting a journalist for doing his job.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is currently under imprisonment at one of the harshest jails in the United Kingdom for exposing US war crimes and their undercover secrets. He has been lodged in prison since 2019 when he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He had taken refuge in 2012 in the Embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that was subsequently dropped in November 2019.
He was indicted by US authorities on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse related to the publication of secret US military documents that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.