Founder of WikiLeaks to remain in prison

The founder of the WikiLeaks whistleblower website, Julian Assange, will remain in prison. A British court declined Wednesday against his release on bail pending a review of the US appeal against the decision not to hand over Assange to them.

"I am convinced there are good grounds to believe that if Mr. Assange had been released today, he would not have appeared in court to participate in the appeal proceedings," Judge Vanessa Baraitser explained.

"As for Mr. Assange, this case has not yet been won from his point of view and the result of the appeal is not yet known," she added.

On Monday, Baraitser concluded that while US prosecutors had provided sufficient evidence to justify the extradition of Assange to trial in the US, she refused it due to WikiLeaks founder's mental ill-health and a possible suicide. She pointed out that the US authorities would not be able to stop him from trying to take his own life.

The US authorities appealed against this decision. They accuse Assange of illegally obtaining and disclosing hundreds of thousands of secret documents. The American prosecutor's office is demanding the extradition of the Australian in connection with 18 charges against him. They concern, inter alia, conspiring with military analyst Chelsea Manning (then Bradley Manning) to break into Pentagon computers, and the publication of hundreds of thousands of documents thus stolen on WikiLeaks in 2010. As argued by the US prosecutor's office, Assange endangered the lives of many people by this. In the event of extradition, Assange would face up to 175 years in prison in the US.

Assange supporters believe that by disclosing classified documents he exposed crimes committed by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, he acted as an investigative journalist and his extradition would be a dangerous precedent restricting freedom of speech in the US.

(PAP)