Julian Assange's supporters celebrated on Monday (January 4) after a judge ruled that the Wikileaks founder could not be extradited to the US.

Footage filmed outside the Old Bailey shows supporters celebrating with champagne.

The judge blocked the request due to fears over the Wikileaks founder's mental health.

Speaking outside the court, John Rees, Head of the Don't Extradite Assange Campaign, said: "Do celebrate that the American prison system is so bad that even this judge wouldn't send Julian Assange into it."

Assange supporters react to the news that a British judge rules it would be ‘oppressive’ to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States, citing concerns for his mental health. Assange cannot be extradited to the US to face charges of espionage and of hacking government computers, the judge ruled, rejecting arguments that Assange would not get a fair trial in the US but blocked extradition on the basis that procedures in prisons there would not prevent him from potentially taking his own life. Lawyers for US authorities are to appeal against the ruling. The case against the 49-year-old relates to WikiLeaks’s publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, in 2010 and 2011. Prosecutors say Assange helped the US defence analyst Chelsea Manning breach the US Espionage Act, was complicit in hacking by others and published classified information that endangered informants.
SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/04/julian-assange-cannot-be-extradited-to-us-british-judge-rules