Updated 11.59 | Published 11.33
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full screen Julian Assange. Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
The fight continues for Julian Assange.
A British court has decided that he can appeal the decision to extradite him to the United States.
The announcement came on Tuesday morning, British media reports.
Britain approved Assange’s extradition back in 2022, but he has since tried to have the decision overturned. As recently as February, he filed to appeal it.
Two judges at a court in London have now decided to approve the appeal.
If Assange were to be extradited to the United States, prosecution for espionage on 17 charges is pending. That after he and Wikileaks published a large number of leaked documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2010 and 2011.
But Assange and his team argue that an extradition would violate an agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States that prohibits extradition for political reasons.
“This unprecedented legal pursuit seeks to criminalize ordinary journalistic means of accessing and publishing classified information with a clear and important public interest,” writes Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s representative, in a document to the court that the Guardian took part in.