Julian Assange’s saviour: The human rights lawyer pictured smiling next to WikiLeaks founder on his plane ride home – and how she came from a small country town in Australia
– 2006: Assange founded WikiLeaks in Australia. The group begins publishing sensitive or secret documents.
– 2010: In a series of messages, WikiLeaks publishes nearly half a million documents about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
– August 2010: Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange on charges of rape by one woman and charges of sexual assault by another woman. The warrant is withdrawn shortly afterwards, with prosecutors citing insufficient evidence to support the rape charge. Assange denies the accusations.
– September 2010: Sweden’s prosecution director reopens rape investigation. Assange leaves Sweden for Great Britain.
– November 2010: Swedish police issue an international arrest warrant for Assange.
– December 2010: Assange surrenders to police in London and is held pending an extradition hearing. The High Court grants Assange bail.
– February 2011: A district court in Britain rules that Assange must be extradited to Sweden.
– June 2012: Assange enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London to seek asylum after his attempts to appeal the extradition decision fail. He is concerned that Sweden will hand him over to US authorities. Police deploy a 24-hour guard to arrest him if he steps outside.
– August 2012: Ecuador grants him political asylum.
– July 2014: A judge in Sweden upholds an arrest warrant against him, which accuses him of sexual offenses against two women.
– March 2015: Swedish prosecutors want to question Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.
– August 2015: Swedish prosecutors halted investigation into some allegations against Assange due to statute of limitations; an investigation into an allegation of rape is still ongoing.
– October 2015: The Metropolitan Police ends 24-hour security for the Ecuadorian embassy, but says they will arrest Assange if he leaves. This brings an end to a three-year police operation that is estimated to have cost millions.
– February 2016: Assange demands ‘total vindication’ after UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finds he has been unlawfully held and recommends his immediate release and compensation. Britain calls the finding ‘utterly ridiculous’.
– September 2018Ecuador’s president says his country and Britain are working on a legal solution to allow Assange to leave the embassy.
– October 2018Assange is seeking a court order to pressure Ecuador to grant him basic rights, which the country says it agreed to when it first granted him asylum.
– november 2018: A US court document that appears to inadvertently reveal the existence of a sealed criminal case against Assange is discovered by an investigator. No details have been confirmed.
-April 2019: Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno blames WikiLeaks for recent corruption allegations. The Ecuadorian government revokes Assange’s asylum status. London police remove Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy and arrest him for breaching bail conditions in 2012, and also on behalf of US authorities.
– May 2019: Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012.
– May 2019: The U.S. government is indicting Assange on 18 counts over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents. Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release classified diplomatic cables and military files from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
– november 2019: Swedish prosecutor drops rape investigation.
– May 2020: An extradition hearing for Assange is postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
– June 2020The US is filing new charges against Assange, which prosecutors say underlines Assange’s efforts to obtain and release classified information.
– January 2021A US judge rules that Assange cannot be extradited to the US because he is likely to commit suicide if held in harsh prison conditions.
– July 2021: The Supreme Court grants the US permission to appeal the lower court ruling blocking Assange’s extradition.
– December 2021The Supreme Court rules that US guarantees about Assange’s detention are sufficient to guarantee that he is treated humanely.
– March 2022:UK Supreme Court refuses Assange permission to appeal against extradition.
– June 2022: The British government orders Assange’s extradition to the United States. Assange appeals.
– May 2023: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Assange must be released and that his continued detention is “achieving nothing”.
– June 2023: A Supreme Court judge rules that Assange cannot appeal his extradition.
– February 20, 2024: Assange’s lawyers are launching a last-ditch legal effort to block his extradition at the Supreme Court.
– March 26, 2024: Two High Court judges in London give US authorities another three weeks to provide further guarantees, including a guarantee that Assange will not face the death penalty, before deciding whether to grant him a new appeal against his extradition .
– May 20, 2024The two Supreme Court justices rule that Assange can bring a new appeal based on arguments over whether he will receive free speech protections or be disadvantaged because he is not a US citizen. The date of the hearing has yet to be determined.
– June 26, 2024: Assange pleads guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information. The judge in the American Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands sentences him to a prison term already served in British prison and calls him a ‘free man’.