LONDON: WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange on Friday moved a step closer to facing criminal charges in the United States for breaking spying law and conspiring to hack government computers after Washington won an appeal over his extradition in an English court.
US authorities accuse Australian-born Assange, 50, of 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks’ release of vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables which they said had put lives in danger.
His supporters cast Assange as an anti-establishment hero who has been victimized by the United States for exposing US wrongdoing in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States won an appeal against a ruling by a London District Judge that Assange should not be extradited because he would likely commit suicide in a US prison.
“The court allows the appeal,” Judge Timothy Holroyde said.
The judge said he was satisfied with a package of assurances given by the United States about the conditions of Assange’s detention including a pledge not to hold him in a so-called “ADX” maximum-security prison in Colorado and that he would be transferred to Australia to serve his sentence if convicted.
But further hurdles remain before Assange can be sent to the United States: the legal wrangling is likely to go to the Supreme Court, the final court of appeal.
Assange’s fiancée, Stella Moris, said his legal team would appeal the decision.
“How can it be fair, how can it be right, how can it be possible, to extradite Julian to the very country which plotted to kill him?” she said. “We will appeal this decision at the earliest possible moment.”
Judge Holroyde said the case must now be remitted to Westminster Magistrates’ Court with the direction judges send it to the British government to decide whether or not Assange should be extradited.
Assange, who denies any wrongdoing, was not in court. He remains in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, where he has been for more than two and a half years.
WikiLeaks came to prominence when it published a US military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff. It then released thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables.
US prosecutors and Western security officials regard Assange as a reckless and dangerous enemy of the state whose actions imperiled the lives of agents named in the leaked material.
His admirers have hailed Assange as a hero for exposing what they describe as abuse of power by modern states and for championing free speech.
WikiLeaks founder Assange one step closer to extradition to United States
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WikiLeaks founder Assange one step closer to extradition to United States
- Assange, 50, is currently being held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison
Tug of war: how US presidents battle Congress for military powers
- The last official declaration of war by Congress was as far back as World War II
WASHINGTON, United States: Donald Trump’s unleashing of operation “Epic Fury” against Iran has once more underscored the long and bitter struggle between US presidents and Congress over who has the power to decide on foreign military action.
In his video address announcing “major combat” with the Islamic republic, Trump didn’t once mention any authorization or consultation with the US House of Representatives or Senate.
In doing so he sidelined not only Democrats, who called for an urgent war powers vote, but also his own Republican party as he asserts his dominance over a largely cowed legislature.
A US official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had called top congressional leaders known as the “Gang of Eight” to give them a heads up on the Iran attack — adding that one was unreachable.
Rubio also “laid out the situation” and consulted with the same leaders on Tuesday in an hour-long briefing, the US official said.
According to the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war.
But at the same time the founding document of the United States first signed in 1787 says that the president is the “commander in chief” of the military, a definition that US leaders have in recent years taken very broadly.
The last official declaration of war by Congress was as far back as World War II.
There was no such proclamation during the unpopular Vietnam War, and it was then that Congress sought to reassert its powers.
In 1973 it adopted the War Powers Resolution, passed over Richard Nixon’s veto, to become the only lasting limit on unilateral presidential military action abroad.
The act allows the president to carry out a limited military intervention to respond to an urgent situation created by an attack against the United States.
In his video address on Saturday, Trump evoked an “imminent” threat to justify strikes against Iran.
- Sixty days -
Yet under this law, the president must still inform Congress within 48 hours.
It also says that if the president deploys US troops for a military action for more than 60 days, the head of state must then obtain the authorization of Congress for continued action.
That falls short of an official declaration of war.
The US Congress notably authorized the use of force in such a way after the September 11, 2011 attacks on the United States by Al-Qaeda. Presidents have used it over the past two decades for not only the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan but a series of operations in several countries linked to the “War on Terror.”
Trump is far from the first US president to launch military operations without going through Congress.
Democrat Bill Clinton launched US air strikes against Kosovo in 1999 as part of a NATO campaign, despite the lack of a green light from skeptical lawmakers.
Barack Obama did the same for airstrikes in Libya in 2011.
Trump followed their example in his first term in 2018 when he launched airstrikes in Syria along with Britain and France.
But since his return to power the 79-year-old has sought to push presidential power to its limits, and that includes in the military sphere.
Trump has ordered strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in Latin America without consulting Congress, and in June 2025 struck Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Perhaps the most controversial act was when he ordered the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in a lightning military raid on January 3.
Republicans however managed to knock down moves by Democrats for a rare war powers resolution that would have curbed his authority over Venezuela operations.
Trump has meanwhile sought to extend his powers over the home front. Democrats have slammed the Republican for deploying the National Guard in several US cities in what he calls a crackdown on crime and immigration.
