US Lawyer Says Assange Faces Decades in Prison if Convicted

LONDON — An American lawyer told an extradition hearing in Britain for Julian Assange on Monday that the WikiLeaks founder faces decades in prison if he is convicted on spying charges in the United States.

U.S. prosecutors have indicted the 49-year-old Australian on 17 espionage charges, and one of computer misuse, over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret U.S. military documents a decade ago. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Attorney Eric Lewis, appearing as a defense witness, said the scope of the indictment pointed to “a very aggressive approach to sentencing on the part of the government.”

“All signs point to a very long sentence, measured in many decades,” said Lewis, a senior partner at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in Washington, DC.

“We are looking at a sentence somewhere between 20 years, if everything goes brilliantly, to 175 years, which the government could easily ask for,” he said.

Read more at  https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/09/15/us-lawyer-says-assange-faces-decades-prison-if-convicted.html