Former software engineer, Joshua Schulte, maintains CIA and FBI made him a scapegoat for an embarrassing public release of a trove of agency secrets by WikiLeaks in 2017.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's supporters staged protests before his 51st birthday this weekend, with his wife Stella Assange among people who gathered outside the Home Office to call for his release.
“People are treated either as heroes if they expose other countries or as criminals if they expose the US,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin says.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had 14 days to appeal the decision, which comes after a UK court issued a formal order clearing his removal.
The case will now go to Britain’s interior minister for a decision, though the WikiLeaks founder still has legal avenues of appeal.
Assange and his fiancee will marry at Belmarsh prison in southeast London where he is on remand and fighting extradition attempts.
WikiLeaks founder had urged the British Supreme Court to allow him to appeal High Court ruling to extradite him to the United States, where he is facing a trial on 18 criminal charges including breaking a spying law.
The court ruled that United States had given a package of assurances to Britain about the conditions of Assange's detention.
A London judge ruled in January that the Wikileaks foudner should not be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges including breaking a spying law, saying his mental health problems meant he would be at risk of suicide.
Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, says extradition of the Wikileaks founder to the US would be a death sentence for him and press freedom worldwide.
Assange has been detained at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since April 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle seven years earlier.
The Australian Wikileaks founder shocked the world by disclosing diplomatic cables containing sensitive information.
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