Julian Assange can be extradited, says UK home secretary

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US has been approved by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Mr Assange has 14 days to appeal the decision, the Home Office said.

It said the courts found that extradition would not be “incompatible with his human rights” and that while in the US “he will be treated appropriately”.

Mr Assange is wanted by the American authorities over documents leaked in 2010 and 2011.

He has been in prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2019 and arrested by British police, after Ecuador withdrew his asylum status.

Responding to the order, Wikileaks said it was a “dark day for press freedom and British democracy”.

The decision is “not the end of the fight”, Wikileaks posted on Twitter, saying it would appeal the decision.

In May 2019, while serving a jail sentence in the UK for breaching bail, the US justice department filed 17 charges against Mr Assange for violating the Espionage Act – alleging that material obtained by Wikileaks endangered lives.

Mr Assange’s legal team claimed that classified documents published by Wikileaks, which related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, exposed US wrongdoing and were in the public interest.

The Supreme Court ruled in March that Mr Assange’s case raised no legal questions over assurances the US had given the UK over how he is likely to be treated.

BBC.COM