KEY POINTS
- Julian Assange did not attend court nor join remotely because he was too unwell, his wife said.
- His lawyers have argued his prosecution is politically motivated.
- But US lawyers say he is being prosecuted for publishing sources' names, not his political opinions.
Julian Assange is being prosecuted for publishing sources' names and not his political opinions, lawyers representing the United States government have told a court in London as the WikiLeaks founder's latest fight to stop his extradition from the United Kingdom concluded.
US prosecutors are seeking to put the 52-year-old Australian on trial over WikiLeaks' .
They argue the leaks risked their agents' lives and there was no excuse for his criminality.
Assange's supporters hail him as a journalist and a hero who is being persecuted for exposing US wrongdoing.
Supporters of Julian Assange demonstrate outside a London courthouse during a hearing. Source: AP
But, on Wednesday, lawyers for the US said Assange's prosecution was "based on the rule of law and evidence".
"The appellant's prosecution might be unprecedented but what he did was unprecedented," lawyer Clair Dobbin said.
Assange "indiscriminately and knowingly published to the world the names of individuals who acted as sources of information to the US," Dobbin said.
"It is these facts which distinguish him, not his political opinions," she added.
Dobbin also responded to Assange's lawyers who cited an alleged US plan to kidnap or murder Assange while he was in London's Ecuadorean embassy, reported by Yahoo News in 2021.
She said the US had given assurances about how Assange would be treated that "wholly undermine this suggestion ... that anything could happen to him".
Dobbin argued that the material WikiLeaks published was obtained by encouraging people to steal documents and contained unredacted names of US sources.
Julian Assange's supporters take part in a protest march on the second day of his extradition appeal hearing in London. Source: EPA / Neil Hall
Dobbin said the publications risked serious harm to named individuals who "lived in warzones or lived under repressive regimes".
Assange's lawyer, Mark Summers, said there was "no proof at all that any harm actually eventuated".
He also said lawyers representing the UK's home secretary had accepted Assange could in theory be charged with offences carrying the death penalty, as was former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who leaked documents to WikiLeaks.
Judge Victoria Sharp said at the end of the hearing that the court would give its decision at a later date.
A ruling on Assange's future is not expected until March at the earliest.
Assange himself was again not in court on Wednesday nor watching remotely because he was unwell, his lawyers and his wife Stella said.
Assange's legal battles began in 2010, and he spent seven years holed up in Ecuador's embassy before he was dragged out and jailed in 2019 for breaching bail conditions.
He has been held in a maximum-security jail in London since then, , while the UK finally approved his extradition to the US in 2022.
Assange's lawyers say he could be given a sentence as long as 175 years but likely to be at least 30 to 40 years.
US prosecutors have said it would be no more than 63 months - just over five years.
