Julian Assange, who founded whistleblowing platform Wikileaks in 2006, will be extradited to the United States, a UK court ruled Wednesday. The decision will now move to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel and the defense have until May 18 to make submissions. 

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Assange faces as many as 18 criminal charges for WikiLeaks published thousands of classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010. The 50-year-old’s lawyers said that he ould face up to 175 years in jail if he is convicted in the US. American authorities, however, say that the sentence was likely to be much lower than that.

The WikiLeaks founderjoined the hearing virtually from UK’s high-security Belmarsh Prison in London since 2019. He was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. He also spent seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

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Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

A Westminster magistrates’ court ruling, last year, found that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. U.S. authorities later provided assurances that the WikiLeaks founder wouldn’t face the severe treatment that his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

Assange lawyer Mark Summers told the court that the legal team had “serious submissions” to make.

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Supporters and lawyers for Assange, 50, argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They argue that his case is politically motivated.