Recently banners that writes “free Assange” were waving on the street outside the London High Court in Britain.
Julian Assange is an Australian editor, publisher and activist who founded Wikileaks in 2006. He gained international recognition in 2010 when Wikileaks published U.S. Army top secret information like U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, U.S. military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and U.S. diplomatic cables with the help of Chelsea Manning, who herself is a former U.S. soldier. Manning was then later court-martial in 2013, when proven guilty for espionage.
Following this period, The U.S. govt. since then is after Assange. It has made several attempts to somehow bring Assange in the U.S. soil and face trial.
But, on Monday, May 20, 2024 The London High court allowed Assange to appeal against his extradition to the United states.
This recent order that has swung in favor of Assange , has given him a breath of relief when he has spent the last few years only hiding from the extradition attempts by the U.S.
At the time when Assange leaked all the information about the U.S. army, he was in Sweden when two women accused him of sexual molestation. He denied the charges and said that’s it’s U.S. conspiracy to extradite him. In a bid to escape them he fled to London.
Sweden Police then issued an international warrant against him. Assange then was taken into the U.K custody but later he got bail. However a district court ruled for his extradition to Sweden.
Fearing arrest, Julian Assange sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador in 2012, which was granted by the South American nation. He remained there for several years under conditions akin to house arrest while he tried to appeal against the charges from Sweden.
Over time, Assange’s relationship with the Ecuadorian government deteriorated, resulting in his expulsion from the embassy and the revocation of his asylum in 2019. This led to dramatic scenes as London police moved in to arrest him for “failing to surrender to the court” in relation to a warrant issued in 2012.
By late 2019, the Swedish cases against Assange had been dropped for various reasons, including the passage of time and the age of the evidence. However, he still faced significant legal challenges with an ongoing case from the United States.
1. In 2012, Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for his espionage actions when he fled to U.K.
2. In 2019, The U.S. indicted him and began extradition proceedings with the UK govt.
