Who is Julian Assange and what is he accused of

Who is Julian Assange? For those who don't know, we are talking about the founder of WikiLeaks, the website edited by journalists and activists from all over the world who since 2006 has published thousands of secret documents received from anonymous sources or whistleblowers on the web.
If it had not been for WikiLeaks we would never have had knowledge of the documents proving the killing of civilians in Afghanistan by US and British troops, or those relating to abuse, torture and violence perpetrated by the American military during the war in Iraq.
Julian Assange has received praise all over the world for his journalistic activity, even being nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, but also ending up in the sights of the United States which put him under investigation on charges of conspiracy.
Since 2010 the Australian journalist has been called to defend himself first against the – very vague – accusations of sexual crimes and then of espionage; in 2012 while in the United Kingdom, faced with a request for extradition from Sweden after complaints lodged by two women for not having undergone health checks after having had unprotected sexual intercourse with them, he received the status of political refugee from Ecuador who hosted him for a long time in its embassy in London.
Since 2019, however, Assange has been detained in London's maximum security Belmarsh prison, with the British High Court of Justice set to decide in the next few days whether to extradite him to the United States where he risks up to 175 years in prison.
Recently after the death of Alexey Navalny, many have highlighted the hypocrisy of the West which erected the Russian opponent as a martyr while instead turning both eyes regarding the Julian Assange affair.
read also Assange, appeal rejected, extradition to the USA approaching Julian Assange's biography Name: Julian Paul Hawkins Date of birth: 3 July 1971 Place: Townsville (Australia) Family: he is the son of theater actors Private life: separated from the first wife with whom he had a son, in prison he remarried to his lawyer Stella Moris Education: self-taught, he never went to school Work: journalist and programmer, he was one of the founders of WikiLeaks Curiosity: in the eighties he was part of the hacker group International Subversives What is Julian Assange accused of The first problems with the law for Julian Assange came in 1992 when, in Australia, twenty-four charges relating to computer piracy were brought against him: despite the conviction, he was released for good behavior after paying 2,100 Australian dollars.
After becoming famous throughout the world thanks to the WikiLeaks scoops, becoming a sort of symbol of investigative journalism in the times of the web, in 2010 an arrest warrant was issued against him in Sweden on charges of rape, harassment and unlawful coercion.
Assange apparently failed to undergo health checks – a conduct which is a crime in Sweden – after having had unprotected sexual intercourse with two women who then reported him.
However, it immediately became clear that the accusations were only a pretext – the investigation was later closed due to lack of evidence – for extradition to the United States where he is accused of espionage, a crime that carries life imprisonment and the death penalty.
The journalist spontaneously handed himself over to the British police and was released on bail, later finding refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in the summer of 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden.
From that moment on, de facto Assange is no longer a free man.
However, political asylum from Ecuador was withdrawn in April 2019, with Julian Assange being arrested and taken away by the London Metropolitan Police and locked up in prison where he is still being held waiting to understand if there will be extradited to the United States.
In fact, the US has been waiting for years to be able to put Assange on trial, with 18 charges linked to the publication of classified documents provided by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Julian Assange – whose health has worsened in recent years having lost a lot of weight in prison – risks up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the United States, guilty of having disclosed to the world authentic but highly embarrassing documents and video files for the USA and The UK.