British court denies bail for Julian Assange

By Rabia Iclal Turan

ANKARA (AA) - A London court Wednesday denied a request from Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange’s lawyers to release him on bail.

The decision came after the Central Criminal Court -- or Old Bailey -- Monday denied the US request to extradite Assange because of concerns over his mental health.

The US is accusing Assange of espionage after the WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of pages of government documents, emails, and other communications, including the US troops’ war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq wars in 2010 and 2011.

Prosecutors argued that Assange assisted defense analyst Chelsea Manning, but the 49-year-old WikiLeaks co-founder denied the allegations.

He was dragged out of Ecuador’s embassy building in London in 2019, where he took refuge for more than seven years.

The British police said he was arrested for skipping his bail in 2012 and on behalf of the US due to an extradition warrant.

Later, he was found guilty of breaking his bail terms in 2012 after failing to surrender to security services by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court and given a 50-week prison term.