U.K. court delays extradition of Julian Assange

A British court on Tuesday ruled that the United Kingdom could not extradite Julian Assange to the United States unless he was guaranteed not to receive the death penalty. The court said he could remain in the United Kingdom, giving the United States three weeks to provide assurances about how Assange would be treated. To extradite Assage, the United States must guarantee that he won’t face capital punishment and that he will have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen would, the British court ruled.

Who is Assange? The Australian-born WikiLeaks founder released classified information from the U.S. military in 2010. The United States has been trying to extradite him from Britain, where he is currently being kept in London’s Belmarsh Prison. The U.S. government’s latest superseding indictment against him includes 17 charges of disclosing national security information.

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta’s report in The Stew about how the U.S. government is trying to make its secrets safer after classified documents were leaked last year.