Friday, 17 June 2022 — CovertAction Magazine

By Editors

UK Home secretary Priti Patel has approved the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States.

Assange faces up to 175 years in prison in the United States if convicted of violating the Espionage Act for publishing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wikileaks said today that Assange would appeal today’s ruling.

His attorney Jen Robinson condemned the UK for extraditing Assange to a country which once considered assassinating him.

Foreign Press Association Press Conference: Priti Patel discloses decision for Assange’s extradition. [Source: youtube.com]

In a statement Wikileaks said “It was in Priti Patel’s power to do the right thing. Instead she will for ever be remembered as an accomplice of the United States in its agenda to turn investigative journalism into a criminal enterprise.”

Jameel Jaffer of the Knight First Amendment Institute tweeted “The Assange indictment is a dagger at the throat of press freedom. The Biden administration should drop the prosecution, as press freedom groups have repeatedly asked it to do.”