WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his team received notice on April 2nd that the Westminster Magistrate’s Court will issue his extradition order to the United States on April 20th. “The order will then go to [U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel] for approval,” the official Wikileaks Twitter said. “Assange’s defence will make submissions to Patel (deadline 18 May).” Assange has been held on remand at Belmarsh maximum-security prison awaiting his extradition hearings in London since 2020.
The United States is seeking extradition, which the British Supreme Court granted in March, to make Assange face over a dozen espionage charges for publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents. The documents, which exposed atrocities American troops committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, were leaked to Assange by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst.
Almost every major human rights and free speech organization has opposed this attempt to silence Assange. Amnesty International has urged the U.S. to drop the charges. “By charging someone with espionage who has no non-disclosure obligation, is not a US citizen and is not in America, the US government is behaving as if they have jurisdiction all over the world to pursue any person who receives and publishes information of government wrongdoing,” the organization says.
Many journalists have also voiced concerns about Assange’s case. “Julian did not commit a crime … the people who did commit the crimes which...
NEW DELHI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday alleged that the entire press conference conducted by Congress leaders Pawan Khera and Gaurav Gogoi was based on material supplied by ...