UK Judge Rejects US Extradition Request For WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange, Cites Suicide Risk
News 18A British judge ruled on Monday that WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States to face charges of breaking a spying law and conspiring to obtain secret US documents by hacking government computers. The US authorities accuse Australian-born Assange, 49, of 18 counts relating to Wikileaks’ release of vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables which they said had put lives in danger. “I find that Mr Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial,” Baraitser said in her ruling. US prosecutors and Western security officials regard Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, as a reckless and dangerous enemy of the state whose actions put at risk the lives of agents whose names were in the material.