London Court Rules Next Hearing On Assange's Extradition To US To Be Held In December

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th November, 2019) Westminster Magistrates' Court in London decided on Monday to remand Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in custody and continue hearings on his extradition case on December 13 and 19, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the UK capital.

Monday's hearing on Assange's extradition to the United States lasted four minutes. The whistleblower assisted in the hearing through a videocall from the Belmarsh prison, where he is held after violating his bail conditions.

According to the court, the hearing was a necessary administrative procedure in extradition cases requiring that a prisoner appear in court at least once in 28 days. As the hearing was of technical nature, Assange did not give testimony, but only confirmed his name and date of birth.

Assange's lawyer told the court that the prisoner had health issues and asked for softer detention conditions. The judge declined the request over lack of jurisdiction.

The UK Metropolitan police arrested Assange on April 11, immediately following Ecuador's revocation of his asylum in the embassy building in London, where he had lived since June 2012. Court hearings are currently being held to decide whether to extradite him to Sweden or the United States. The former holds sexual assault charges against him, while in the latter, he is wanted for espionage and may face up to 175 years in prison.

WikiLeaks leaped into the spotlight back in 2010 when they released a classified video of the killing of two Reuters staffers in a US airstrike in Iraq in 2007. The group has since published hundreds of thousands of other classified materials on the US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.