Barry Pollack
The legal team of Australian journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hopes that the American side will refuse to continue the fight for his extradition. Lawyer Barry Pollack, who represents Assange's interests in the United States, said this to Lente.ru.
According to him, the team is extremely pleased with the decision of the court in London, which refused to extradite Washington. “Attempts by the United States to prosecute Julian Assange and get him extradited from the very beginning were contrary to common sense. We hope that the United States will decide not to spin the case further, taking into account the verdict of the British court, ”said Pollack.
According to Reuters, the American side plans to appeal. At the same time, on January 6, it will be decided whether the founder of WikiLeaks will be released on bail.
Earlier on January 4, it became known that a London court refused to extradite Assange from the US authorities on charges of violating the espionage law. The judge named his possible suicide as the reason.
The U.S. Justice Department filed 17 charges against Assange in May 2019, later adding another. If extradited to the United States, the founder of WikiLeaks could face up to 175 years in prison. The current American President Donald Trump claimed that he was ready to pardon Assange if he named the source from whom he received the texts of letters from the hacked servers of the Democratic Party in 2016.
In 2012, fearing extradition to Sweden due to rape charges (the case was dropped in 2019), Assange applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. There he was continuously for almost seven years.
