The US Justice Department on May 23, 2019, charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with violating the US Espionage Act in the publishing of military and diplomatic files in 2010.
The Justice Department unveiled 17 new criminal charges against Assange accusing him of aiding and abetting Chelsea Manning with stealing secret US files and also recklessly exposing and endangering confidential sources in the Middle East and China who were named in the files. Initially charged with conspiring with Manning, Assange now faces a total of 18 criminal counts. If convicted, the punishment could run to a long term of imprisonment.
"These unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to all journalists in their endeavour to inform the public about actions that have been taken by the US government," said Barry Pollack, an American attorney for Assange. Manning was arrested in May 2010 and convicted by court-martial in 2013 of espionage in connection with the case. Subsequently, her sentence was reduced to 7 years from 35 years, however, she is now in jail after repeatedly refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Assange. Assange is currently fighting extradition to the United States, after Ecuador on
April 11, 2019, revoked his seven-year asylum in the country's London embassy. Soon after he left the embassy, the British police arrested him. He is now serving a 50-week sentence in a London jail after a British Judge on
May 1, 2019, pronounced the sentence against him for skipping bail when he fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in 2012.
Decades of Imprisonment for WikiLeaks founder – Julian Assange, if convicted for spying charge
International
Sep 17, 2020
Upendra Malaviya
(
Editor: Ekta Joshi
)
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On Monday (September 14, 2020),an American lawyer stated that WikiLeaks Founder, Julian Assange will face decades of imprisonment if found convicted on spying charges in an extradition hearing in Britain. It was made clear by U.S. Persecutors that the 49-year-old Australian is to face 17 espionage Charges and one of computer misuse, over WikiLeaks publication of secret data of U.S. military decades ago. They also mentioned that a maximum of 175 years of imprisonment is awarded for the...
WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Indicted in the U.S. for Hiring Hackers
International
Jun 29, 2020
Harshil Jain
(
Editor: Ekta Joshi
)
4 Shares
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing a new indictment in the United States for hiring hackers at conferences held in the Netherlands and Malaysia in 2009. They were hired to obtain classified information for publication based on a list posted on his anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks titled ‘Most Wanted Leaks’. The indictment was returned on Wednesday by a federal grand jury against Assange that accused him of working with hacking groups to target and publish sensitive information.The...
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