LONDON, Dec. 10 — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges, the Royal Courts of Justice here ruled Friday as it overturned a lower court ruling earlier this year.
Assange, 50, is wanted in the United States on allegations of disclosing national defense information following WikiLeaks’s publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked military documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars a decade ago.
Assange has been held at south London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since 2019. In January, a lower court refused the U.S. request to extradite Assange due to concerns over his mental health, citing the risk that highly-restrictive conditions of U.S. prisons could make him suicidal.
Giving his judgment on Friday, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett of Maldon said: “That risk is in our judgment excluded by the assurances which are offered (by the U.S. authorities).”
Lawyers for the United States said Assange would be allowed to transfer to Australia to serve any prison sentence he may be given.
