British judge Vanessa Barritzer has turned down a request to extradite Julian Assange to the United States on several charges, including espionage.
Considering Assange's mental state, the judge said handing him over to the United States would be "oppressive." He said Assange might commit suicide if sent back to the United States.
In 2010, Assange leaked nearly 500,000 US military documents in the name of WikiLeaks. These documents contain information on various military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was later charged with 16 counts of espionage in the United States. If convicted, he faces up to 175 years in prison.
The judge dismissed the argument for freedom of speech, citing mental illness. "If the crime is proven, it will not be protected by the argument of freedom of speech," he said.
However, the judge said that the fear of being alone in a US jail was making Assange frustrated. He said Assange had the "intelligence and perseverance" that he could use to commit suicide and that the authorities could not stop him.
The British Judicial Office tweeted the full verdict.
Julian, 49, was born in 1971 in Townsville, northeastern Australia. In 2006, he founded a web platform called WikiLeaks. Anyone could give secret documents to be published there if they wanted.
WikiLeaks came into the discussion in 2010. They then aired a secret video in 2006, in which the U.S. military killed dozens of people using an Apache helicopter in Baghdad, including two Reuters reporters.
WikiLeaks then began releasing millions of secret US diplomacy documents. From Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family, there has been a flurry of critical information about US operations in the Afghan war.
He was later charged with 16 counts of espionage in the United States. Sweden wants to prosecute for sexual harassment. From 2012 to 2019, he was granted political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He was arrested in 2019.Many see Assange's arrest and trial as a blow to the media and freedom of speech. On Monday, there were calls from various quarters for the British court not to hand him over to the United States. "The United States wants to make investigative journalism a criminal activity," said Nils Melzer, the UN special envoy.
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