Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder resists US … – usatoday.com

A British judge has sentenced WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012. AP

LONDON WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, appearing before a British court Thursday, said he would notsurrender to a U.S.extradition request as he defended his efforts to steal classified American government records as journalism.

"Notfor doing journalism that'swon many, many awards and affectedmany people," the Australian, 47,said by video link from Belmarsh Prison, a high-security jail in south-east London. Assange looked relaxed, dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt and a dark blazer as he addressed Judge Michael Snow atWestminster Magistrates court.

Assange was not handcuffed during his brief appearance.

Thursday's hearing was the first in a case likely to drag on for months, if not years. U.S. authorities are seeking Assange's extradition because theDepartment of Justicehascharged him with conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system to reveal a large cache of top-secret files on everything from the war in Afghanistan to diplomatic letters between State Department officials and U.S. ambassadors.

The court on Thursday scheduled a further procedural hearing datefor May 30. Snow said the first substantive action related to the case would likely commenceJune 12.

"The charges relateto one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the U.S.," said Ben Brandon, a lawyer representing the U.S. government.

Brandon said that the documents Assange downloaded from the Pentagon computer included 90,000 war reports related to Afghanistan, 400,000 from the Iraq War, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessments and 250,000 State Department cables.

About three dozen activists gathered outside the court to protest Assange's potential extradition. They waved banners and heldup photos of Assange with his mouth covered with the American flag. "Civilized people do not extradite publishers of war crimes to war criminal regimes, do they?" one such signread.

"Free Assange" and "No extradition" read others.

"It's about journalistic freedom," Icelandic investigative reporter and WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said speaking to reporters outside the court.

Some protesters later temporarily blocked a road outside the court.

The hearingcomes one day after a separate British court sentenced Assangeto 50 weeks in a British prison for skipping bail seven years ago and seeking refuge in Ecuador's Embassy in London.Assangeapologized to the court and said he was "struggling with terrifying circumstances" when he decided to hole up in the embassy.

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When he arrived atSouthwark Crown Court in a prison van on Wednesday,Assange raised a clenched fist, a gesture he repeated as he left the court to be returned to prison. He white hair and long beard were trimmed, a marked contrast to Assange's disheveled appearance when he was carried out head-first of Ecuador's embassy on April 11, looking frail and disoriented, by British police.

The U.S. alleges that Assange, who is known for his exceptional computer hacking skills, assisted Chelsea Manning, then a soldier in the U.S. Army, in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers. WikiLeaks subsequently published thousands of classified U.S. military and diplomatic cables and images, including video footage allegedly showing U.S. soldiers killing civilians in Iraq.

Manning served nearly seven years of a 35-year sentence for theft and espionage for helping to deliver classified documents to WikiLeaks. Manning's sentence was later commuted by former President Barack Obama and she was released in 2017.

Assange faces up to five years in a U.S. prison if convicted of conspiracy charges.

Journalist or criminal?Julian Assange notorious for leaks of US secrets

Assange was arrested last month inside the Ecuadorian embassy after the South American countryrevoked his political asylum. Hesought asylum in the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations.At the time, Assange's legal team believed that if he were extradited to Sweden he would subsequently be extradited to the U.S.

Assange denies the rape and sexual assault allegations, whichwere dropped because his residence in Ecuador's embassy stymied the investigation, andbecause the statute of limitations expired. Swedish prosecutors have indicated that they are considering a request from one of Assange's alleged victims to re-open the rape probe.

If that happens, Assange could facea competing new claim for extradition to Sweden.

A supporter of Julian Assange with a poster of the WikiLeaks founder joins other protesters to block a major road in front of Westminster Magistrates Court in London on May 2, 2019.(Photo: Frank Augstein, AP)

Anand Doobay, a London-based lawyer who specializes in extradition law, said that Assange's case isnow further complicated by his 50-week sentence. He said that extradition cases can take "a very long time" and that the decision may ultimately reside with Britain's secretary of state, who will need to be satisfied that Assange would not face the death penalty in the U.S. or be charged with additional crimes.

He said that if Sweden decided to renewits request for extradition based on the rape probe, the secretary of state would also need to decide which request to favor.

"There are significant legal obstacles for the U.S. case," said Daniela Nadj, a professor of law at Queen Mary, University of London, adding that "many questions need to be answered." Among them: If Sweden decidesto renew its extradition claim whether a rape allegation should take precedence over a hacking one.

"Right now Julian will be fighting a battle against despair and despondency," Lauri Love, a British activist who won a U.S.extradition appeal in 2018 for allegedly hacking into the computer systems of the FBI, U.S. Federal Reserve and NASA, told USA TODAY outside the court in London where he showed up to support Assange.

"He'll be facing the same worriesI had," Love, 34, who said he is a friend of Assange's, noted. "Being sent to a place where you have no friends, no family and where you are facing the prospect of facing many people who consider you to be the enemy."

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