Home Office signs order to extradite WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange on US espionage charges
WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange will be face espionage charges in the United States, after the Home Secretary Priti Patel signed an extradition order this morning.
This comes after a UK judge ordered the extradition in April following a long legal battle, after a UK judge ordered him stateside to face a 175-year sentence.
WikiLeaks published of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011, supplied by US Army Intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
This included confidential military records and diplomatic cables.
The US Department of Justice indicted Australian-born Assange on 18 counts, including breaking spying laws and conspiring to hack government computers.
In a bid to avoid extradition, Assange took political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for 2,487 days. He was eventually arrested in April 2019 after Metropolitan Police officers were ‘invited’ in.
He was held in Belmarsh prison, where he married Stella Moris, almost three years after he was dragged out of the embassy by officers.
More to follow