US Justice Dept. Preparing To Prosecute WikiLeaks Founder Assange - Reports

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th November, 2018) The US government is preparing to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and is confident it will be able to have him extradited to the United States, media reported.

The US Department of Justice is getting ready to prosecute Assange and is optimistic it will be able to bring him into a US courtroom, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.

Assange has been living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since receiving political asylum from the country in 2012.

Assange was questioned by the UK police over his alleged involvement in a sexual assault case in Sweden and released on bail, but breached its conditions by taking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy.

Sweden dropped the investigation in 2017, but the UK arrest warrant for Assange, over bail breach, remained in place.

In October, Assange's lawyer Carlos Poveda told Sputnik that the WikiLeaks founder was ready to turn himself in to the UK authorities if he received a written guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States or to any other country. Later, Assange accused Ecuador of planning to hand him over to the United States and looking for an excuse to end his asylum, after conditions of his stay at the diplomatic mission were leaked to the media.