Media

Home page

Media

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks in prison

01 May 2019 15:07 (UTC +04:00)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sentenced by a British judge on Wednesday to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail in England and hiding out for seven years in the country's Ecuadorean Embassy, ONA reports citing NBC news.

Assange failed to report to a police station on June 29, 2012, when he was fighting extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault and rape. Instead, he fled to Ecuador's embassy in London where he spent the next 2,487 days. Last month, Ecuador finally withdrew Assange's diplomatic asylum, and he was arrested by British police. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to surrender to police, relating to his flight in 2012, but he was convicted at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

On Wednesday, he was sentenced at London's Southwark Crown Court to 50 weeks in prison, The Associated Press reported.