Assange’s wife says ‘the world is watching’ extradition appeal hearing

Stella Assange, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s wife, said the “world is watching” her husband’s extradition appeal hearing Tuesday.

“We have two big days ahead. We don’t know what to expect, but you’re here because the world is watching. They have to know they can’t get away with this,” Stella Assange said at a protest outside of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. 

“Julian needs his freedom, and we all need the truth,” she continued. 

Julian Assange has been attempting to avoid extradition to the U.S. for more than a decade, where he has been indicted on 17 charges including espionage and computer misuse.

He assisted U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in stealing diplomatic cables and military files, which would later be published on WikiLeaks, American prosecutors allege.

Assange has spent the last five years in Belmarsh Prison, on the outskirts of London. Before that, he spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

“He is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information, information that is both true and of obvious and important public interest,” Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s lawyer, said in court, per The Associated Press.

Assange’s fate could be decided at the end of the two-day hearing Wednesday, but it’s more likely that it could take weeks for the judges to decide on his conviction, the AP reported.

“Assange and WikiLeaks were responsible for the exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale,” Fitzgerald said in written submissions, according to the AP.

The WikiLeaks founder’s lawyers have also said that, if convicted, he risks facing up to 175 years in prison, but American authorities have disagreed and said his sentence will probably be shorter.

The Associated Press contributed.