A judge in the United Kingdom has denied Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States, where he faces espionage charges for his work running WikiLeaks. According to The Guardian the ruling was delivered in a criminal court this morning, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that the judge noted that the risk of suicide is too high.
Assange will now remain in British custody pending a bail application, and the US government is free to proceed with an appeal against the decision. This particular ruling is only related to the US request for extradition treaty between the UK and US.
Initially detained in the UK for violating his bail conditions, Assange is facing hacking and espionage charges in the US related to a string of WikiLeaks publications that the US Justice Department called “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”
