U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed off on the U.S.’s request to have Julian Assange extradited back to the United States on Thursday. As The Washington Examiner reports:
U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid said on Thursday he signed and certified the U.S.’s extradition request for the WikiLeaks founder, in what Javid said means “the final decision is now with the courts.” A formal extradition U.K. court hearing will take place Friday.
“He’s rightly behind bars because he broke U.K. law,” Javid told BBC Radio 4. “It is a decision ultimately for the courts, but there is a very important part of it for the home secretary and I want to see justice done at all times and we’ve got a legitimate extradition request, so I’ve signed it.”
Assange, 47, had was arrested in April at Ecuador’s embassy in London on a single charge in the U.S. of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010. This initial indictment revealed that prosecutors charged him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion by agreeing to help Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning crack a password that would have given Manning access to a classified military network.
Federal prosecutors later accused the WikiLeaks founder of violating the Espionage Act as part of a new superseding indictmentin late May, charging him on 17 new counts in addition to the single count unsealed in early April.
Many people are divided about exactly what to think about Mr. Assange. Is he a whistleblower, or a traitor to the United States? Either way, it appears that he’s now set to finally face justice for his alleged crimes.
I just hope there’s something left of his mind if he IS brought here. The brutal British ‘official’s’ ‘enhanced interrogation’ methods have been used on him to the point that his psyche may never recover!
I pray he makes it safely to USA. There must be a high price on his head by the Globalists.
It would be great if Trump gives him Clemency for all that he helped the USA. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
Assange is a thief. His accomplice, Bradley Manning, is a traitor who should still be in prison.
Oops! Manning is back in prison. May he remain there.
The truth hurts whether you are a whistleblower or whatever. Those who are guilty want to do away with the truth and fight for their own interests. He certainly had some interesting takes on many things whether truth/fake. He reminded me of Snowden when he took things from NSA, but he opened up many of our minds to truths that were happening to us as US citizens and country. So are they whistleblowers or traiters to we the people. Power can corrupt and destroy us and maybe we need wake up calls today.
He is a whistleblower and should be protected.
I have a few questions? Firstly, is he a US citizen? If he isn’t (and I really thought he was Australian), then he can’t be a traitor. Secondly, what Sajid Javid is quoted as saying needs to be looked at for a moment. He was arrested on a US warrant, hence it has nothing to do with UK law and everything to do with the US wanting to protect its modesty. He took refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy precisely because he feared that backdoor methods would be used to divert him to the USA if he were apprehended for the (spurious? invented?) Swedish accusation.Thirdly, Wikileaks exists to shine a light upon the illicit dealings of big powerful people and governments – if there are fears that allowing theee illicit matters to come to public attention will damage the national security of one country or another, then surely that demonstrates that no country on this planet is untainted by such actions. In other words, the US is embarrassed that it’s been cought out doing immoral illegal things when it would prefer to be seen to be on a higher moral plane casting hellfire upon non-US-aligned nations. The USA acts like a global dictator, but pretends to enshrine democracy. I’m no enemy of the USA, I even have a broadly Republican point of view, but there are and have been some extremely nasty people in US governments (John Bolton, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld spring to mind).
Julian Assange is not a whistle blower or a hero in my opinion. If it’s proven that his publishing of government secrets (that he had no right to) led to the death of some or many, then he SHOULD be charged and prosecuted. If he’s not guilty he should not fear his day in court and the opportunity to prove it. His fear of extradition to the U.S. certainly makes it “appear” that he thinks he’s guilty.
To his supporters, what are you afraid of? That I’m right?
If Obama could pardon Chelsea Manning, then I think President Trump should pardon Julian Assange. All he did was accept the information he was given, and made it public. Isn’t that what reporters do every day?
Agree!!!
I view Assange as a hero. He exposed bad actions on the part of many governments. It will be a gross miscarriage of justice if Assange is abused and/or incarcerated.
Agree!
AT LEAST HE WILL BE SAFE HERE IN THE U.S., JUST KEEP KILJOY AWAY FROM HIM!!!!!!!!!!! HE HAS HELPED THE U.S. IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE!!!
He saved our Country from Hillary and the Deep State !
They will never let him testify in open court. The whole Seth Rich case will blow up in the Clinton and Obama’s faces.
I vote whistleblower.
The question of which “criminals” are prosecuted is most certainly an interesting one, it seems to me.
Julian Assange is a HERO. If not for him the USA would be in deep doo-doo!!!!
Not the USA, Not America. Washington DC will be in deep doo doo!
Washington DC does not represent America and has not for a very long time.
Well said. I completely agree.