WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was scared of the outbreak of coronavirus infection in the British Belmarsh prison and decided to isolate himself in his cell. Sputnik writes about this citing sources.
He did not attend the November 26 hearing because he has a “predisposition to complications” that COVID-19 can cause. The judge was informed that Assange chose to act for reasons of his own safety.
The US Department of Justice filed 17 charges against Assange in May 2019, later adding another. In case of extradition to the United States, which is currently under way, the founder of WikiLeaks faces up to 175 years in prison. The current President of the States Donald Trump claimed that he is ready to pardon Assange if he names the source , from which he received the texts of letters from the hacked servers of the Democratic Party in 2016.
In 2012, fearing extradition to Sweden due to rape charges (the case was dropped in 2019), Assange applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. There he was continuously for almost seven years. Assange is currently serving a prison sentence in the UK for violating bail conditions.