LONDON: A British judge said on Thursday she would give her decision early next year on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States to face 18 charges, including espionage.

The US authorities accuse Australian-born Assange, 49, of conspiring to hack government computers and of violating a secrecy law with Wikileaks release of confidential official communications in 2010-2011.

To admirers, Assange is a champion of free speech who exposed abuses of power. Critics say that by publishing unredacted documents, he recklessly endangered the lives of intelligence sources in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Judge Vanessa Baraitser told London’s Old Bailey Court at the conclusion of his extradition hearings that she would deliver her verdict on Jan 4.

Assange’s legal travails in Britain date to 2010, when he began fighting an attempt to extradite him to Sweden to answer questions about allegations of sexual assault, which were later dropped.

In June 2012, he sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy where he remained for seven years. He was dragged out in April last year and served a jail term for violating bail, but has remained in prison after the US extradition process began.

Those hearings began in February for a week and were due to resume in May, but the coronavirus lockdown meant they were then postponed until September.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2020