Julian Assange may live to fight extradition another day, but an additional legal door has been closed to the Wikileaks founder this week—and his time is running out.
Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled that Assange can in fact be extradited to Sweden to face alleged sex crimes. Assange’s lawyers had argued that the arrest warrant for his extradition was not valid. The court did however give them two weeks to challenge the decision, putting the extradition of the former hacker and anti-secrecy activist on hold a little longer. His defense team could also try to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Assange’s 18-month legal battle over extradition has seen his influence and financial power weakened significantly. Wikileaks proponents say the ruling is part of a concerted effort by the United States to punish Assange by any means possible, after his website released embarrassing diplomatic cables as part of the largest classified document leak in American history. Credit card companies have also banded together to make online financial support of Wikileaks—and by proxy Assange himself—nearly impossible.
