2021 (27th of October), UK: Full appeal hearing for US extradition

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This was written in October 2021, feel free to add stuff I missed/got wrong or stuff that happened since then :)

#FreeAssangeNow #FreeAssange

2021 (January), UK: Judge Baraitser ruled that Assange could not be extradited to the United States, citing concerns about his mental health and the risk of suicide in a US prison. She sided with the US on every other point, including whether the charges constituted political offences and whether he was entitled to freedom of speech protections. The US appealed.

2021 (June): Icelandic newspaper Stundin published details of an interview with one of the U.S. Justice Department's witnesses against Assange. In the interview he stated he had fabricated allegations used in the U.S. indictment.

2021 (September), US: "Yahoo! News" publishes details from interviews with former US intelligence officials. The article is called "Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA's secret war plans against WikiLeaks"

2019 (October), UK: Assange says at a court hearing: "I don't understand how this is equitable. This superpower had 10 years to prepare for this case and I can't access my writings. It's very difficult where I am to do anything but these people have unlimited resources. They are saying journalists and whistleblowers are enemies of the people. They have unfair advantages dealing with documents. They [know] the interior of my life with my psychologist. They steal my children's DNA. This is not equitable what is happening here."

2019 (November), SWEDEN: The statute of limitation on the charges in Sweden expired.

2019 (December): Nils Melzer (UN special rapporteur on Torture...) accused the UK government of torturing Julian Assange. He said Assange's "continued exposure to severe mental and emotional suffering ... clearly amounts to psychological torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

The Obama administration had debated charging Assange under the Espionage Act, but decided against it out of fear that it would have a negative effect on investigative journalism and could be unconstitutional. The New York Times commented that it and other news organisations obtained the same documents as WikiLeaks also without government authorisation. It said it was not clear how WikiLeaks' publications were legally different from other publications of classified information.

2019 (September): The Spanish newspaper El País reported that the Spanish defence and security company Undercover Global S.L. (UC Global) had spied on Assange for the CIA during his time in the embassy.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said that the verdict contravened "principles of necessity and proportionality" for what it considered a "minor violation"

2019 (April), US: The day of Assange's arrest in London, the US indictment against him was unsealed.

2019 (May): The United Nations special rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Nils Melzer, concluded that "in addition to physical ailments, Mr Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma."

2019 (May), US: Assange was indicted on 17 new charges relating to the Espionage Act of 1917 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia a town that mainly consists of intelligence personal. These charges carried a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison.

2017 (March), US: WikiLeaks began releasing the largest leak of CIA documents in history, codenamed Vault 7. The documents included details of the CIA's hacking capabilities and software tools used to break into smartphones, computers and other Internet-connected devices

According to former intelligence officials, in the wake of the Vault 7 leaks, the CIA plotted to kidnap Assange from Ecuador's London embassy, and some senior officials discussed his potential assassination.

2018 (February), SWEDEN: Sweden suspended its investigation

2018 (March), US: A US jury issued a sealed indictment against Assange

2018 (December): The UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urged the UK to let Assange leave the embassy freely

2019 (April), UK: The Ecuadorian government invited the Metropolitan Police into the embassy, and they arrested Assange on the basis of a US extradition warrant. He was later sentenced to 50 weeks imprisonment for breaching bail.

2016, US: During the US Democratic Party presidential primaries, WikiLeaks hosted a searchable database of emails sent or received by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.

2016 (July), US: WikiLeaks released emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in which the DNC seemingly presented ways of undercutting Clinton's competitor Bernie Sanders and showed apparent favouritism towards Clinton.

Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice did not indict Assange because it was unable to find any evidence that his actions differed from those of a journalist. However, after President Donald Trump took office, CIA director Mike Pompeo and Attorney General Jeff Sessions stepped up pursuit of Assange.