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Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle as he arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court on April 11, 2019 in London, England.
Jack Taylor | Getty Images
LONDON – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been denied bail by a London court.
The move comes after a ruling on Monday said the 49-year-old Australian could not be extradited to the United States.
He is currently being held at HMP Belmarsh in south-east London for skipping bail on a previous occasion.
“I am satisfied that there are substantial grounds to believe that if Mr. Assange is released today, he would not go to court to face the appeal process,” Judge Vanessa Baraitser said, according to Reuters.
US authorities want to charge Assange with espionage after posting hundreds of thousands of classified military documents and diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011.
Baraitser said on Monday the extradition would be oppressive due to Assange’s sanity and warned he could take his own life.
“The overall impression is of a depressed and at times desperate man who is genuinely afraid of his future,” Baraitser wrote in his decision. “For all of these reasons, I find Mr. Assange’s risk of suicide, should an extradition order be made, to be substantial.”
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