A single judge on the High Court of England and Wales has rejected imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s nearly year-old request to appeal the British decision to extradite him to the United States to stand trial on espionage and computer intrusion charges.
Assange’s legal team has one last recourse in the U.K. and has five days to request a hearing before the court.
Stella Assange, Assange’s wife, issued this statement on Thursday:
“On Tuesday next week my husband Julian Assange will make a renewed application for appeal to the High Court. The matter will then proceed to a public hearing before two new judges at the High Court and we remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the U.S. government.”
The single judge on the court, Sir Jonathan Swift, issued the 3-page decision on Tuesday. It is not yet publicly available on the High Court’s website.