The British courts have approved the extradition to the US of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The judges of the London Court of Appeals have thus given reason to the US, against a decision issued last year and that denied the extradition of the WikiLeaks activist, because it was considered that there was a risk of suicide, writes the information agency Lusa.

The High Court in London ruled that the assurances given by the United States of America were sufficient to ensure that Assange will be treated humanely and ordered the trial judge to send the extradition request to the British Home Secretary for evaluation.

However, it is known that the final decision on the extradition is still in the hands of Interior Minister Priti Patel. A lower court judge had already refused a request earlier this year to extradite Assange to the US, claiming at the time that the accused was in poor mental health to withstand the US criminal justice system.

The US appealed, with lawyer James Lewis arguing that Assange "has no history of severe and prolonged mental illness" and that he does not reach the threshold of being so ill that he cannot resist crippling himself.

US authorities told British judges that if they agreed to extradite Assange, he could serve any US prison sentence he receives in Australia, where he is from.

The US court wants to try the Australian for releasing, since 2010, more than 700,000 classified documents about US military and diplomatic activities, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 counts of espionage and one count of computer misuse due to the publication through the WikiLeaks portal of classified documents.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison, although Lewis said that "the longest sentence before imposed for this crime is 63 months."

Assange, 50, is currently being held at Belmarsh maximum security prison in London.

Source Lusa