WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Sentenced to 50 Weeks in UK Jail

The 47-year-old Assange was
arrested last month^[1]
by London’s Metropolitan Police Service after the Ecuadorian
government suddenly withdrew his
political asylum^[2].

Within hours of his arrest, Assange was convicted at Westminster
Magistrates’ Court of skipping bail in June 2012 after an
extradition order to Sweden over claims of sexual assault and rape
allegations made by two women.

Although Sweden dropped its preliminary investigation into the rape
accusation against Julian Assange in 2017, Assange chose not to
leave the Ecuadorian
Embassy^[3] due to fears of
extradition to the United States.

In the Southwark Crown Court today^[4] Judge Deborah Taylor
gave Assange a sentence close to the maximum of a year in custody,
saying it was hard to “envisage a more serious example of this
offense.”

Taylor said Assange’s seven years in the London’s Ecuadorian
embassy had cost 16 million pounds (nearly AUD 29 million) of
British taxpayers money, adding that he sought asylum as a
“deliberate attempt to delay justice.”

In a letter read out in the court by his lawyer, Assange said he
had found himself “struggling with terrifying circumstances” for
which neither he nor those from whom he “sought advice could work
out any remedy.”

U.S. authorities have not officially confirmed the charges
against Assange until his arrest last month when for the first
time, U.S. Department of Justice unsealed
charges^[6] against the Australian
hacker for his alleged role in “one of the largest compromises of
classified information in the history of the United States.”

The DoJ, who is now seeking his extradition to the United
States, accused Assange of trying to help Chelsea Manning, a former
intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, crack a password to Pentagon
computers.

Assange has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer
intrusion, and if convicted, could face a five-year prison term in
the U.S.