OREANDA-NEWSThe US Justice Department has prepared new charges against Julian Assange, the deadline for the nomination of which expires on June 14, reports Wikileaks with reference to the Dutch television channel. It's noted that the key witness was a convicted fraudster - a former FBI informant Sigurdur Thordarson, who was sentenced to prison for fabricating documents under the name Assange, fraud and pedophilia. According to the channel, on May 6, FBI special agent Megan Brown, who heads the investigation against the founder of Wikileaks, flew to Iceland for questioning Thordarson. Last week, he was transported to Washington, where he was also “thoroughly interrogated”. According to Wikileaks, Thordarson was in prison for three years and was only recently released.

Assange became known for his publications exposing US actions during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, in particular the killing of civilians. In addition, he published materials about the conditions of detention in the American prison Guantanamo in Cuba. In 2010, he was accused of sexual harassment and rape in Sweden. Assange denied the allegations. According to him, the women who applied to him, acted out of revenge and under the influence of law enforcement.

Since 2012, the founder of WikiLeaks was hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearing extradition to a Scandinavian country. On the morning of April 11, 2019, Assange was detained on a warrant issued in 2012 for his failure to appear in court, as well as at the request of the authorities of Sweden and the United States.

On May 1, he was sentenced to 11.5 months in prison for violating bail conditions. Last week, US authorities presented Assange with new charges of espionage and the disclosure of secret information. Now he faces up to 175 years in prison. The court will have to decide on the issue of extradition of a journalist to the States. The extradition proceedings began on May 2. The main issue of the process is deciding who to issue Assange to: Sweden or the USA. The next meeting will be held on June 14th.