Julian Assange: What now for the WikiLeaks founder?

Now that Julian Assange is out of the Ecuadorean Embassy, questions remain about what the future holds for the WikiLeaks founder.

Now that Julian Assange is out of the Ecuadorean Embassy, questions remain about what the future holds for the WikiLeaks founder.

Will the UK charge him with breaching bail?

Why did the UK police arrest Assange?

A warrant issued for Assange for breaching bail has remained active since Assange jumped bail in London in 2012 and fled into the Ecuadorean Embassy.

He was in London seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations, which were later abandoned after the time for prosecutors to lay charges was set to run out.

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is in custody at a central London police station. Picture: AP

Assange always denied the sexual assault claims, saying they were an attempt to get him back to Sweden in order to extradite him to the US to face charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of around 750,000 classified American documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An unsuccessful attempt was made in February last year by Assange’s lawyers to quash the warrant.

London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement they were “obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy”.

Can Julian Assange be extradited to the US?

Yes, American can apply for his extradition.

In November last year, a document made public after being mistakenly filed in a court indicated a person named Assange had been charged in secret by the US justice department.

A police van parked outside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London after Julian Assange’s arrest. Picture: AP

The court filing, submitted apparently in error by US prosecutors in an unrelated case, mentioned criminal charges against someone named “Assange” even though that was not the name of the defendant.

The file noted the documents would “need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges … and therefore can no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter”.

The person who originally leaked the documents, former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in jail for her involvement, although she was released in 2017 after former US president Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Manning was imprisoned again in early March for refusing to give grand jury testimony about

Assange.

Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012.

The British courts would make the final decision on whether Assange should be extradited to the US.

But can Australia help and or save him, given he now holds a passport?

No. Australia cannot intervene in the British courts system. While it may be able to make

representations, it cannot stop a potential extradition.

No Australian Government has ever shown any enthusiasm for assisting Assange.

The prime minister at the time he fled to London in 2011, Julia Gillard, said: “There’s not anything we can, or indeed, should do about that’’ when Assange asked for protection from the Americans.

Originally published as Julian Assange: What now for the WikiLeaks founder?