The High Court in London has rejected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appeal against his extradition to the United States, the international press reported on Friday.

According to an opinion issued on Tuesday, to which the EFE news agency had access, Judge Jonathan Swift considered that "none of the four arguments" raised by Assange's defense are acceptable, reaffirming the extradition authorization signed on June 17, 2022 by the then British Home Secretary, Priti Patel.

According to Lusa, the magistrate also rejected, in a parallel decision, that the 51-year-old journalist can appeal parts of a January 2021 decision, which rejected his extradition on the grounds that he was at risk of suicide. In dismissing the appeal, Swift said that it was "no more than an attempt to re-execute the extensive arguments already made and rejected by Judge" Vanessa Baraitser.

Although Judge Vanessa Baraitser's ruling was in Assange's favor - the United States subsequently successfully appealed the judge's decisions - Assange's legal team decided to challenge some of the arguments that the judge rejected. The only option left to Assange's lawyers is to try to appeal Judge Jonathan Swift's decision.

On the social network Twitter, the wife of WikiLeaks founder Stella Assange confirmed that next Tuesday, at the end of the deadline, they will appeal to two other High Court judges, their last judicial possibility in the UK.

"We remain optimistic that we will win and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States, where he would face charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the US government," said Stella Assange.

Spanish lawyer Aitor Martínez, a member of the journalist's international legal team, also explained on Twitter that the British High Court judge "rejected in three pages, without legal assessment, all the points of the appeal to prevent the surrender of Julian Assange".

"On Tuesday, an appeal will be lodged against this decision. It is everyone's duty to stop this aggression that would silence the world's free press," Martínez said. The non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also expressed concern about Swift's decision, which "brings the WikiLeaks founder 'dangerously close'" to being handed over to US justice.

RSF condemned, in a statement, the judge's rejection of the arguments presented to review the extradition decision, warning that only "one last legal step" remains in the UK. If the two judges end up rejecting the final appeal that will be presented on Tuesday, the only alternative would be to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), RSF noted.

Julian Assange has been in pre-trial detention in London's Belmarsh high security prison since he was expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London on April 11, 2019, after Quito withdrew its political asylum. The Australian has been held in the UK for almost 13 years, despite not having been convicted of any crime.

First, he was placed under house arrest due to a case brought by Sweden that has since been dropped and, between 2012 and 2019, he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after which he was sent to Belmarsh prison. If extradited to the United States, Assange will face charges of 18 alleged counts of espionage and computer hacking for revelations on his WikiLeaks website.