Who is the founder of WikiLeaks and what fate awaits him?

Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks organization, is making his last legal attempt in England today to avoid extradition to the United States. The High Court of London has started hearing his case at 10:00 GMT, and at the same time, there are many demonstrations across Europe to prevent him from being sent to America.

According to Al Jazeera, Assange’s lawyers, who are seeking to cancel his extradition order, say that Washington is seeking to punish him due to the revelation of his criminal actions by this person, and the founder of WikiLeaks may be sentenced to 175 years in prison in the United States.

What is WikiLeaks and why did it become famous?

WikiLeaks is actually a non-profit organization founded in 2006 by Assange. The main work of this institution was the disclosure of documents from anonymous sources. In April 2010, WikiLeaks released a video showing dozens of people killed, including two Reuters reporters, during an American helicopter attack in Baghdad. This video made the WikiLeaks platform famous.

In the same year, this platform published more than 90,000 confidential US military documents about the war in Afghanistan and about 400,000 confidential files of this country about the war in Iraq. These revelations represented the largest security breach of the US military in history. WikiLeaks also released 250,000 secret diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world, some of which were published by newspapers such as the New York Times and the Guardian.

American politicians and military officials, who were outraged by the information leak, claimed that the unauthorized release of information put people’s lives at risk.

What charges does Assange have?

The founder of WikiLeaks faces 18 charges for publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents. Seventeen of them are related to espionage and one is related to computer misuse. Assange’s supporters argue that he should be protected under the Freedom of the Press Act. By publishing a statement, Amnesty International asked the American authorities to abandon their decision and described the prosecution of Assange as a “full-scale attack on the right to freedom of expression”.

What are the possible outcomes of today’s meeting?

If Assange and his legal team succeed, his case will go to the full Court of Appeals. But if he fails, his team of lawyers can complain to the European Court of Human Rights. This court can stop his extradition, but lawyers fear that Assange will be sent to the United States before the European Court hears the case.

Assange’s team plans to argue that he cannot get a fair trial in America.

If extradited, he may be held in a security prison and if convicted, some have predicted a 175-year sentence for him.