WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out on Monday whether he can be extradited from Britain to the United States to be charged with espionage for the publication of confidential military documents.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is scheduled to file her decision Monday morning at the Old Bailey District Court in London. If the request is granted, Home Secretary Priti Patel will make the final decision.
The losing side is likely to appeal the decision, which could lead to years of more legal disputes.
However, there is the possibility of outside actors intervening, which could end the saga that has been going on for a decade.
Stella Morris, Assange’s partner and mother of their two children, has asked US President Donald Trump on Twitter to grant Assange clemency before leaving office on January 20.
And even if Trump doesn’t, there are assumptions that his successor, Joe Biden, could take a more lenient approach to Assange’s extradition process.
US prosecutors charged Assange, 49, of 17 espionage and one computer abuse with a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
Lawyers representing the US government said in their closing arguments after a four-week hearing in the fall that Assange’s defense team had raised issues that were neither relevant nor admissible.
Systematically, the defense asks this court to decide, or act on the submission, that the United States of America is guilty of torture, war crimes, murder, violations of diplomatic and international law, and that the United States of America a ‘lawless state,’ “said the lawyers.” These requests are not only legally unenforceable in this process, but they should never have been made.
The defense argued that Assange is entitled to the protection afforded by the First Amendment – of the U.S. Constitution – for the publication of leaked documents exposing the U.S. military’s wrongful actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the United States extradition requested was motivated for political reasons.
In their closing written arguments, Assange’s team accused the United States of an “extraordinary, unprecedented and politicized” persecution that “blatantly denies its right to freedom of expression and is a fundamental threat to freedom of expression. Around the world” .