He had already been found guilty of breaking the UK bail order. Now a court in London announced the sentence for WikiLeaks founder Assange.
The founder of the WikiLeaks disclosure platform, Julian Assange, has been sentenced to 50 weeks in prison in the UK for violating his bail obligations. The sentence was announced by a court in London.
The native Australian was arrested by the British police at the embassy of Ecuador in London on April 11 after the South American country lifted political asylum. He fled to the diplomatic mission in 2012. At that time, he was the subject of a European arrest warrant for rape allegations in Sweden. Assange, who always denied the accusations, feared being shipped to the US via Sweden.
Allegation: Conspiracy with Chelsea Manning
Against Assange is also a US extradition request. The local authorities accuse him of plotting with whistleblower Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, the US Department of Justice announced on the day Assange was arrested. He said that he helped Manning crack a password to a government network of secret documents.
Tomorrow, a London court wants to deal with the US extradition request. However, the decision to extradite could take years. It is believed that the charges of a possible extradition of Assange to the US could be supplemented with the offense of espionage. This provides for decades of imprisonment and in very severe cases even the death penalty.
Manning had sent hundreds of thousands of secret military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010. It is about the US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks had published many of these secret documents. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his revelations in 2013, but was pardoned in 2017 by then-US President Barack Obama shortly before the end of his term.
Currently, the whistleblower is again in jail. With a Beugehaft since the beginning of March, it should apparently be forced to a statement on the Assange investigation.
Delivery to Sweden possible
However, Assange could also be shipped to Sweden. There he was investigated for rape allegations in 2010 against him. Assange denied the allegations and fought the extradition to the Supreme Court of Great Britain, before he was defeated in 2012. The Swedish trial of Assange ceased in 2017 after being out of reach of detectives after escaping to the embassy.
The woman’s lawyer accusing Assange of sexual assault has applied for arrest after the arrest and has begun reopening a pre-trial investigation into the suspected rape. The Swedish Public Prosecutor’s Office is currently examining the application according to its own statements. The case would become time-barred in August 2020.
