The UK Home Office has announced that Minister Priti Patel has agreed to a US extradition request for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who is being prosecuted by Washington on charges of leaking a large number of confidential documents.
A spokesman for the British Home Office said that the Minister “will sign an extradition order in the absence of any reasons preventing its issuance.”
The 50-year-old Australian Assange has 14 days to appeal the decision.
Following the announcement, WikiLeaks said it was “a black day for press freedom and British democracy” and announced that Assange would appeal the decision.
“In this case, the British courts did not conclude that Assange’s extradition would be repressive, unfair or a breach of due process,” a Home Office spokesman said.
He added that the British courts “did not find that his extradition was incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and freedom of expression (…) and that he would be treated appropriately in the United States.” including in relation to his health.
The US judiciary is seeking Assange’s extradition to stand trial on charges of publishing more than 700,000 classified documents as of 2010 on US military and diplomatic activities, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He could be sentenced to 175 years in prison.
Assange was arrested in 2019 after spending more than seven years as a refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
