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Monday, January 4, 2021

January 04, 2021
Julian Assange founded Wikileaks in 2006 and came under international attention in 2010 Credit: AFP or licensors

(TheSun) - WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange will not be extradited to the US to face spy charges due to a suicide risk, a court ruled today.

An Old Bailey judge delivered the judgment over Assange, 49, who was accused of a plot to hack computers and a conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.

Assange, 49, who has been held in South East London’s Belmarsh prison as he fought extradition, has been wanted in the US to face charges of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011.

He had lived at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London from 2012 to 2019 to avoid espionage charges in the US.

Assange's lawyers said he faces up to 175 years in jail if convicted, although the US government said the sentence was more likely to be between four and six years.

It's now open to the US government to appeal today's decision.

Assange came under scrutiny after being accused of exposing classified documents from then-US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

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