Why is Julian Assange in court again – and what might happen if he’s extradited to the US?
Today is Julian Assange’s last chance to stop UK officials extraditing him to the US.
It has been almost 12 years since the WikiLeaks founder, now 52, stepped into the Ecuadorian embassy in London to evade arrest.
Over the next two days, the High Court will hear his final appeal against being sent to the US, where he faces charges for helping former military analyst Chelsea Manning download top secret intelligence files that WikiLeaks published online.
Assange‘s wife says he will “die” if he’s extradited. His legal team has also promised to lodge a final appeal at the European Court of Human Rights if this week’s attempt fails.
WikiLeaks founder leaves London’s High Court in 2011. Pic: Reuters
What did WikiLeaks do – and how was Assange involved?
In 2010 and 2011 WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of US military and diplomatic documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It has repeatedly been described as “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States”.
Prosecutors, politicians, and the intelligence community say the disclosure endangered the lives of agents working in the field, but WikiLeaks supporters claim it helped expose alleged wrongdoing by the US.
The leaked documents came from Chelsea Manning, who was working as an analyst for the US military in Iraq at the time.
She was then known as Private Bradley Manning, but now identifies as a woman having transitioned in prison.
Chelsea Manning following her release from prison in 2017. Pic: Twitter/X
According to the indictment, Manning “downloaded four nearly complete databases from departments and agencies of the US”.
They contained “approximately 90,000 Afghan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 US Department of State cables”.
Among the 750,000 published WikiLeaks documents was a video from 2007 showing a US helicopter firing on a group of civilians in Baghdad. The attack killed 12 people, including two wounded children and two Reuters photographers.
Assange arrives in court in a prison van in 2019. Pic: PA
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According to the indictment, around 7 March 2010, Manning and Assange discussed the value of Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs.
Prosecutors say they have court documents that prove Manning said she was “throwing everything [she had] on JTF [joint task force] GTMO [Guantanamo Bay] at [Assange] now”.
The papers say she later told Assange: “After this upload, that’s all I really have got left,” to which Assange replied: “Curious eyes never run dry in my experience”.
Pamela Anderson visits Julian Assange at Belmarsh prison in 2019. Pic: PA
Late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood at a Free Assange protest. Pic: PA
The following day, the indictment alleges Assange “agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on US Department of Defence computers… connected to the secret internet protocol”.
“Manning was able to log onto the computers under a username that didn’t belong to her,” the indictment reads, adding that Assange provided special software to hack the system.
“Manning then used the computer to download everything WikiLeaks later published,” the indictment concludes, between 28 March and 9 April.
Julian Assange pictured in January 2020
Manning was arrested, tried by court-martial, and later convicted of various espionage offences in 2013, and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Days before he left office in 2017, President Barack Obama reduced her sentence and she was released.
But she was jailed again in 2019 after refusing to give evidence to a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks and its involvement in the 2016 US election.
US officials have said there was Russian interference in the vote, but Assange has never been charged in relation to that allegation.
WikiLeaks published emails hacked from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, which resulted in the Democrats suing the website, alongside the Russian state, and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team.
An Assange supporter outside court in London in 2022. Pic: PA
What is he charged with?
When Assange was arrested inside the Ecuadorian embassy in May 2019, the US indictment against him was unsealed, revealing a single charge of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion”.
This was expanded later that month to include 17 new charges under the US Espionage Act, including conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information, conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, obtaining national defence information, and disclosure of national defence information.
The indictment was issued by the Eastern District of Virginia and would mean a total sentence of 170 years in prison, if he was found guilty on all charges.
In June 2020, a US grand jury ruled to “broaden the scope” of Assange’s alleged computer intrusions to claims he worked with hackers to help illegally obtain information for WikiLeaks.
Assange pictured inside his prison van. Pic: PA
How has he avoided extradition so far?
Assange’s political asylum in London dates back to a 2010 Swedish arrest warrant for alleged rape charges.
He took shelter in the embassy after failing to appeal extradition to Sweden, fearing the US was planning charges against him and that he may be sent there after a sentence in the Scandinavian nation.
Assange was inside the embassy for seven years, in which time the Swedish case expired, but the US began compiling its own case.
Eventually the Foreign Office accused Ecuador of preventing the proper course of justice and the South American nation withdrew its asylum offer, paving the way for Assange to be removed from the embassy and arrested in 2019.
Julian Assange and his now-wife Stella Assange (right), formerly part of his legal team. Pic: PA
Since then, he has been held at Belmarsh maximum security prison in south London.
In January 2021 a judge ruled he could not be extradited due to his risk of suicide in a US jail. But the decision was later overturned after the US gave additional assurances.
This week is the final stage of the UK appeals process.
Stella Moris outside HMP Belmarsh after her wedding ceremony
Ahead of the hearing, his wife Stella Assange, who he married while at Belmarsh in March 2022, said: “His health is in decline, physically and mentally.
“His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison – and if he is extradited he will die.”
Assange’s native Australia has tried to intervene in the case, but without success so far.
The US House Oversight Committee has issued subpoenas for depositions with former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton relating to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
The Republican-controlled committee also subpoenaed the Justice Department for files relating to the paedophile financier, as well as eight former top law enforcement officials.
Donald Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein‘s crimes, claiming he ended their relationship a long time ago.
Mr Trump and Mr Epstein at a party together in 1992. Pic: NBC News
The US president has repeatedly tried to draw a line under the Justice Department’s decision not to release a full accounting of the investigation, but politicians from both major political parties, as well as many in Mr Trump’s political base, have refused to drop their interest in the Epstein files.
Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and since then, conspiracy theories have swirled about what information investigators gathered on him and who else may have been involved in his crimes.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee initiated the subpoenas for the Clintons last month, as well as demanding all communications between former president Joe Biden’s Democrat administration and the Justice Department about Epstein.
The committee previously issued a subpoena for an interview with Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who had been serving a prison sentence in Florida for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She was recently transferred to another facility in Texas.
Mr Clinton was among those acquainted with Epstein before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. He has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.
Mr Clinton previously said, through a spokesperson, that while he travelled on Epstein’s jet, he never visited his homes and had no knowledge of his crimes.
Read more:
All we know about Trump and Epstein’s ‘friendship’
The subpoenas give the Justice Department until 19 August to hand over the requested records.
The committee is also asking the former officials to appear for depositions throughout August, September and October, concluding with Hillary Clinton on 9 October and Bill Clinton on 14 October.
Although several former presidents, including Mr Trump, have been issued congressional subpoenas, none has ever appeared before members under compulsion.
Last month, Mr Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release information presented to the grand jury that indicted Maxwell for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been in contact with Donald Trump about a pardon, a source close to the rapper’s legal team has told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.
A White House spokesperson said it “will not comment on the existence or nonexistence of any clemency request”.
On Tuesday, the rapper was denied bail ahead of his sentencing in October, when he could face up to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of prostitution-related offences.
The sentence will likely be much shorter than that, however.
In July, he was found guilty of two counts of transportation for prostitution – but cleared of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking, which carried potential life sentences.
During an interview with news channel Newsmax last Friday, Mr Trump said “they have talked to me about Sean” but did not announce any decision.
Read more:
How the trial unfolded
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
Combs reacts after the verdicts are read out in court. File pic: Reuters
The president seemed to cast doubt that he would grant a pardon, however.
“You know, I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great. And seemed like a nice guy, I didn’t know him well,” Trump said. “But when I ran for office, he was very hostile.”
“I don’t know,” Trump said. “It makes it more – I’m being honest, it makes it more difficult to do.”
Trump was then asked, “more likely a ‘no’ for Combs?”
Trump responded: “I would say so.”
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How the Diddy trial unfolded
Combs, who co-founded Bad Boy Records and launched the career of the late Notorious BIG, was for decades a huge figure in pop culture, as well as a Grammy-winning hip-hop artist and business entrepreneur, who presided over an empire ranging from fashion to reality TV.
Now, as well as the criminal conviction, he is also facing several civil lawsuits.
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