Julian Assange launches legal challenge against Trump administration

Source: The Guardian



WikiLeaks founder’s lawyers file urgent application in attempt to prevent extradition to US

Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent
@owenbowcott

Wed 23 Jan 2019 09.00 EST

Julian Assange, the fugitive WikiLeaks founder whose diplomatic sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy appears increasingly precarious, is launching a legal challenge against the Trump administration.

Lawyers for the Australian activist have filed an urgent application to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) aimed at forcing the hand of US prosecutors, requiring them to “unseal” any secret charges against him.

The legal move is an attempt to prevent Assange’s extradition to the US at a time that a new Ecuadorian government has been making his stay in the central London apartment increasingly inhospitable.

He has been staying in the Knightsbridge flat, which houses the embassy, since 2012 when he fled extradition proceedings at the UK’s supreme court. Swedish prosecutors have since dropped their request to extradite him to Stockholm over a rape investigation.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/23/julian-assange-launches-legal-challenge-against-trump-administration-extradition