Lawyers for the U.S. will tell a UK court why WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange should face spying charges

American government lawyers argue for Julian Assange's extradition to the U.S. on espionage charges in London court.

Lawyers for the American government are to tell a London court on February 21 why they think Julian Assange should face espionage charges in the United States, in response to a last-ditch bid by his defence to stop the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder.

Mr. Assange’s lawyers are asking the High Court to grant him a new appeal — his last legal roll of the dice in the long-running legal saga that has kept him in a British high-security prison for the past five years.

The 52-year-old Australian has been indicted on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago. American prosecutors say Mr. Assange helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk.

Lawyers for the U.S. have argued in written submissions that Mr. Assange was being prosecuted “because he is alleged to have committed serious criminal offences.”

Attorney James Lewis said Mr. Assange’s actions “threatened damage to the strategic and national security interests of the United States” and put individuals named in the documents — including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped U.S. forces — at risk of “serious physical harm.”

To his supporters, however, Mr. Assange is a secrecy-busting journalist who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They argue that the prosecution is politically motivated and he will not get a fair trial in the U.S.

Mr. Assange’s lawyers argued on the first day of the hearing on February 20 that American authorities are seeking to punish Mr. Assange for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale,” including torture and killings.