The United States has filed 17 new allegations against Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks

Julian Assange is back on the ropes. This time, The United States has presented 17 new charges against the founder of Wikileaks, including one for espionage.

The new charges against Assange, who was already accused of conspiracy and infiltration of government computers, also hold him responsible for spying and publishing highly confidential documents, which could result in a jail term of up to 170 years.

The prosecutor's office maintains that Assange could have done intelligence by collaborating with agents to obtain and distribute secret information, behavior that the defendant's defense has repeatedly justified by alleging that it is part of his journalistic work.

"Julian Assange is not a journalist, our department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy," said Deputy Secretary General Attorney General John Demers in a statement.

Prosecutors filed a lawsuit against Assange last April for conspiring with ex-soldier Chelsea Manning, who in 2010 had leaked more than 700,000 clbadified documents to WikiLeaks. This is why he incurs a five-year sentence of imprisonment.

The 47-year-old Australian has been under arrest since April 11, when the British authorities proceeded to arrest him while he was at the Embbady of Ecuador in the United Kingdom, where he remained asyle since June 19, 2012.

Ecuador ended the Asange asylum when the founder of Wikileaks sued the authorities of that country after Quito imposed a cohabitation protocol in the embbady.

Since then, the activist is in power of the British Justice (which has sentenced him for violating precautionary measures in 2012) and expects to be extradited to the United States (which has left him in the United States). requires the dissemination of hundreds of thousands of secret documents.) or Sweden (for badual badault on two women).