London Court to Hold Second Hearing on Julian Assange on Thursday

Westminster Magistrates Court will resume consultations to decide between two extradition requests: that of Sweden over sexual assault charges and of the United States over charges of a cyber attack on a government computer that resulted in a massive leak of classified information.

During the initial hearings on 12 April, when Assange communicated with the courtroom via a video link from a high-security prison, Belmarsh, where he is serving a 50-week sentence for violating his 2012 bail, he refused to surrender to the US extradition request.

‘Counting on You’: Assange Calls For Help in a Letter Sent from Prison

25 May 2019, 02:15 GMT

The UK's Metropolitan Police arrested Assange on 11 April after Ecuador revoked his asylum at the embassy in London. The whistleblower filed for asylum back in 2012 after rape allegations had been made against him following Assange's visit to Sweden in 2010. The WikiLeaks founder has vehemently denied all those claims, stressing they were just a pretext for his extradition to Sweden, and then — to the US.

At the moment, Assange faces 175 years in an American prison for his alleged role in compromising classified information.