Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle upon his arrival at the Westminster Magistrates Court on April 11, 2019 in London, England.
Jack Taylor | Getty Images
LONDON – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been denied bail by a court in London.
The decision comes after a ruling on Monday said the 49-year-old Australian cannot be extradited to the US.
He is currently being detained at HMP Belmarsh in South East London for missing bail on a previous occasion.
“I am convinced that there are substantial grounds to believe that if Mr. Assange is released today, he will not surrender to the court to initiate the appeal process,” said Judge Vanessa Baraitser, said Reuters.
US authorities want to accuse Assange of espionage after he published hundreds of thousands of classified military documents and diplomatic messages on WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011.
Baraitser said Monday that extradition would be suppressive due to Assange’s mental health and warned he could commit suicide.
“The general impression is that of a depressed and sometimes desperate man who is genuinely afraid of his future,” Baraitser wrote in her statement. “For all these reasons, I think Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition warrant were taken, is significant.”