United States prosecutors have just under two months to present British authorities with a final and detailed criminal case to justify the possible extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Paul Assange, a US government official said on Friday.
The official – who asked for anonymity when discussing the case – said US authorities had already sent Britain a provisional arrest warrant regarding Assange’s extradition to the United States.
But within 60 days from Thursday, when British police bundled Assange out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London where he had taken refuge seven years ago, US authorities must submit a formal request outlining all the legal charges Assange would face if he is transferred into US custody, Reuters reported.
Assange is charged with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain unauthorized access to a government computer, according to a criminal indictment against Assange which prosecutors in Virginia secretly obtained more than a year ago but only unsealed after Assange’s arrest.
The US indictment filed in March 2018 said Assange, in March 2010, engaged in a conspiracy to help Manning crack a password stored on Defense Department computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a US government network used for classified documents and communications.
Julian Paul Assange, born 3 July 1971, is an Australian computer programmer, publisher and journalist. He founded WikiLeaks in 2006, an international publishing organization known for revealing war crimes, human rights abuses, and corruption.
WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning. He is currently a fugitive from UK and Swedish justice, in Ecuador’s London embassy after having been granted political asylum by Ecuador in August 2012.
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