What happens next in Julian Assange's legal case?

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is making a last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition to the US to face trial for espionage charges.

The 52-year-old Australian national is wanted over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose classified information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Protesters gathered outside the High Court in London on Tuesday regard him as a hero and a truth seeker, with supporters warning his extradition could have a chilling effect on free speech. However, the US says Assange's sharing on unredacted files put people's lives at risk, with a court previously hearing how some informants "disappeared" following the data leaks in question.

Assange has spent over a decade trying to avoid being sent to the US, having spent seven years taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London before eventually being kicked out. With the US having successfully challenged a previous British court ruling not to extradite him, Assange's lawyers are now fighting for a chance to be granted another appeal in the UK.

Recommended reading

• Julian Assange: key dates in the WikiLeaks founder's case (The Guardian)

• Julian Assange’s brother says WikiLeaks founder is ‘suffering’ with health ‘deteriorating’ in prison (The Independent)

• Julian Assange ‘will die’ if extradited to US, wife warns (The Independent)

Who is Julian Assange?

Born in Townsville, Australia, in 1971, Assange developed an interest in computers from a young age and gained a reputation as a sophisticated programmer in his teens.

In 1995 he was arrested and pleaded guilty to hacking, receiving a fine and avoiding prison on condition he did not reoffend. Assange went on to study mathematics and physics at Melbourne University.

Assange launched WikiLeaks in 2006, creating a web-based "dead letter drop" for would-be leakers. His website rose to prominence in April 2010 when it hosted a classified video showing a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad during the Iraq war.

The site showed more than 90,000 classified US military documents on Afghanistan war, and about 400,000 classified US files on the Iraq war. The two leaks represented the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history.

Wikileaks followed this up with the release of 250,000 secret diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world, with some of the information published by newspapers such as The New York Times and The Guardian.

What is Julian Assange accused of?

In November 2010, a Swedish court approved a European arrest warrant for Assange over claims he raped one woman and molested another. At the time he said these claims were "without basis".

He was arrested in London the following month and spent two years battling extradition to Sweden in court, claiming at the time the allegations were politically motivated and a possible pretext to him being sent to the US for questioning.

Assange was granted political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012 and was eventually forced out in April 2019, with officials accusing him of “innumerable acts of interference in the politics of other states” and a catalogue of rude, anti-social and threatening behaviour. He was then arrested in London for failing to surrender to bail.

Swedish prosecutors, having shelved the rape investigation in 2017, reopened the case in 2019 after Assange's expulsion, but dropped it again in November of that year, claiming the evidence had "weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed".

In June 2019, the US Justice Department asked the UK to extradite him to face 18 charges that he conspired to hack US government computers and violated espionage laws. The leaks had angered US politicians and military officials, who said the leaks had put lives at risk.

In written submissions, lawyers for the US said their case against him was "consistently and repeatedly misrepresented" by Assange's legal team.

They said he was not being prosecuted for publication of the leaked materials, but for aiding and conspiring with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to unlawfully obtain them, then disclosing names of sources and "putting those individuals at grave risk of harm".

Although Assange completed his sentence for avoiding bail in September 2019, he remained in Belmarsh maximum security prison pending extradition hearings.

What happens if Julian Assange wins his legal bid?

This week's hearing at the High Court, running Tuesday and Wednesday, is expected to be Assange's final chance to be granted an appeal in a UK court against extradition to the US.

If he wins, it won't mean he is completely out of the woods, rather, a full appeal hearing will be held to again consider his challenge. In January 2021 a British judge ruled he should not be extradited to the US because he would be likely to take his own life while being kept in isolation.

However, this judgment was later overturned by the High Court after the US provided assurances over how Assange would be treated.

What happens if Julian Assange loses?

If Assange loses, his only remaining option would be to go through the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Speaking at a press conference last week, his wife, Stella Assange, said that if the appeal bid is unsuccessful, Assange would apply to the ECHR for a Rule 39 order to stop extradition while it considers his case.

His supporters say the Australian national faces 175 years in prison if he is extradited. A US Department of Justice document says he faces "a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count except for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, for which he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison".

Assange's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said that his client's actual sentence is more likely to be 30 or 40 years, which still means he could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison. Speaking on behalf of his client, who himself is not in court or watching remotely because he is unwell, Fitzgerald said the case interfered with Assange's freedom of speech.

"Mr Assange is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practices of obtaining and publishing classified information which is true and of public interest," he added, claiming it had caused "legitimate concern to journalists throughout the world".

During their earlier successful challenge, lawyers for the US said four “binding” diplomatic assurances had been made, including that the US would consent to Assange being transferred to Australia to serve any prison sentence he may be given.