Julian Assange Scores Major Victory in Fight Against Extradition

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was on Tuesday handed a major boost in his yearslong legal battle as a British court ruled that he can appeal against his extradition to the U.S.

London’s High Court allowed the Australian journalist to continue his fight against a 2022 decision from the U.K. government allowing his extradition to answer espionage charges. The ruling means that Assange can now launch one last appeal in England, where he has been held in a high-security prison for the last five years.

American prosecutors want to put the 52-year-old on trial for charges related to the publication of a tranche of classified U.S. intelligence files in 2010. They say Assange is not being prosecuted for the publication of the secret documents but rather for allegedly helping and conspiring with ex-U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in illegally obtaining them. (Manning was ultimately sentenced to 35 years in prison but former President Barack Obama commuted her sentence, after she’d served seven years, during his last days in office in 2017.)

Read more at The Daily Beast.