Why is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange facing 175 years in prison? What are US' charges?

On April 20, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange moved a step closer to being extradited to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison. A British judge on Wednesday formally approved the extradition of the 50-year-old to the US to face the spying charges under the Espionage Act. It is to be noted here that despite the formal approval of the UK judge, Assange still has legal avenues to appeal while the case is set to now go to Britain's interior minister for a decision.

The latest order came after UK Supreme Court last month refused Assange the permission to appeal against a lower court’s ruling that he could be extradited. WikiLeaks founder, for several years, has tried to avoid a trial in the United States on charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of a significant trove of classified documents in 2010.

While Assange’s lawyers still have four weeks to make submissions appeal to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, it still remains unclear if they would seek to appeal in High Court.

What are the charges against Assange in the US and why does he face 175 years in prison? 

The past decade has been significantly tumultuous for Assange, who set up WikiLeaks in 2006 as a platform for anonymous whistleblowers to share top-secret information and data. Even at the time of its founding, WikiLeaks and its founder, the now 50-year-old Assange drew divided responses with equal parts of criticism and encouragement. For many, while the platform represented ground-breaking journalism, the others flagged national security concerns budded from the website.

What did WikiLeaks release?

WikiLeaks was active for 15 years and in that time period, numerous troves of documents, data and information dumps, were released. Some of the most impactful publications include 400,000 secret military reports relating to the war in Iraq and 90,000 documents on Afghanistan’s conflict.

However, in 2010, the platform ended up releasing what is now infamously called ‘Collateral Murder’ video, showing soldiers in the United States Apache helicopter killing a dozen people on the ground in Iraq’s Baghdad including two journalists of an international news agency.

What happened to Assange after 2010?

In 2010, an arrest warrant was issued by Swedish authorities over charges of rape and sexual assault. Later, the WikiLeaks founder was held in the UK, the country where he was living at the time, and waited for a result of an extradition request to face charges in Sweden. But two years after being held in the UK, Assange skipped bail and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

He ended up spending around seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. While the developments were taking place pertaining to the case filed by Swedish authorities against Assange, the officials in the United States also launched an investigation into the publishing of the documents relating to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Later, the US also moved to press charges against Assange and extradite him from the UK. These charges included at least 17 for espionage along with one for computer misuse with another individual, US whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

As the US-brought legal battles were piling up for Assange, ties between the WikiLeaks founder and Ecuador also started to deteriorate, with President Lenin Moreno accusing the embassy of “repeated violations". Ultimately, Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorian Embassy building in London in 2019. 

After being abandoned by Ecuadorian authorities, Assange was found guilty in the UK of skipping bail. Additionally, he also had to face a pending US request for extradition when he was taken to Belmarsh prison. Sweden ended up dropping the rape case in November 2019. 

Why is Assange avoiding extradition to US?

Julian Assange is wanted in the United States on 18 criminal charges and if convicted, he faces up to 175 years in prison. While in 2021, a magistrates court termed it “oppressive” for him to be extradited to the US, the High Court overturned that decision in December and said that the WikiLeaks founder could be extradited to the US on basis of assurances over his treatment.

A lawyer for Assange has previously said that they would fight extradition to the US and avered that his arrest would set a dangerous precedent for the rights of journalists. 

Image: AP/ PTI