WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal decision to extradite him to U.S., Britain’s Supreme Court says

The 50-year-old Australian publisher will remain in London’s Belmarsh Prison, where he has been held since April 2019 after the Ecuadoran Embassy revoked his political asylum.

The case before the Supreme Court will take place in the coming weeks to months — and it is narrow. The Supreme Court said that Assange raised an issue of legal importance that he could ask the top court to rule on.

U.S. prosecutors allege that Assange, who was charged during the Trump administration, helped hack into classified information and published thousands of pages of military records and diplomatic cables about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, thus putting the lives of allies in danger.

Assange’s supporters say he was acting as an investigative journalist who uncovered a trove of damning material about American actions abroad. They say the extradition and prosecution will undermine press freedoms in the United States.

Last year, a British judge ruled that Assange should not be extradited to the United States because he would be at high risk of suicide in the U.S. prisons, which allow inmates to be held in solitary confinement for years.

The U.S. government appealed that decision, suggesting that the psychiatrist who examined Assange was biased and that Assange’s mental health was not a barrier to extradition.

The appeals court agreed with the U.S. government, and said that Assange could be sent to the United States to face charges.

Under President Biden, the Justice Department assured the British courts that Assange can be put on trial in the United States despite his mental health issues.

The U.S. government in October promised the British courts that if Assange were convicted, he would not be sent to the highest-security U.S. prison or automatically be placed in solitary confinement. He also could seek to serve his sentence — if he was found guilty — in his native Australia.