A UK appeals court ruling on Friday determined that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s mental state is healthy enough to handle the American criminal justice system.
AThe High Court in London ruled that U.S. assurances were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely, and directed a lower court judge to send the extradition request to the home secretary for review where the final decision on whether to extradite Assange will be made.
“There is no reason why this court should not accept the assurances as meaning what they say,″ the High Court ruling stated. “There is no basis for assuming that the USA has not given the assurances in good faith.”
Assange is currently being held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison. If convicted in the U.S., Assange faces a possible penalty of up to 175 years in jail. However the sentence is more likely to be between four and six years.
The Australian faces an 18-count indictment from the U.S. government, accusing him of conspiring to hack into U.S. military databases to acquire sensitive secret information relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which was then published on the Wikileaks website.