Assange Extradition: London judge to hear US request on Thursday

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A London court has sentenced WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange to over a year in jail for skipping bail back in 2012. He should at the same time fight a US extradition attempt. Toby Muse has the details from Washington.

He was the international fugitive who everyone knew where to find. Now Julian Assange is in a British prison, and a London judge is hearing the U.S. case for his extradition Thursday morning.

The US request portrays Assange as a criminal hacker, aiding and encouraging former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to illegally access and steal confidential military files. The single criminal count carries a maximum five years' prison time, but there's speculation U.S. prosecutors are considering more charges.

The existing U.S. indictment says Assange helped Manning break passwords to sensitive military computers and encouraged Manning to hunt out more documents.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came out hard against Assange and WikiLeaks back when he was still Trump's CIA Director.

MIKE POMPEO CIA DIRECTOR (2017-18) "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service."

Supporters of Assange paint him as a publisher of secret documents - like newspapers and television stations do every day. John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer and journalist who supports Assange, believes the US government is indeed looking to up the charges against Assange.

JOHN KIRIAKOU FORMER CIA OFFICER "I think they are trying to charge him with something under the espionage act but they're not quite sure how to do it. Because if they try to charge him with espionage for asking his source for classified information, they're going to have to charge half of the reporters at the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and everywhere else."

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but released after seven years - her sentence commuted by then-President Barack Obama in 2017. Now, Manning is back in jail since refusing to testify about Assange in early March. Her continued confinement, yet another sign the US government may be mulling more charges against Assange.

Assange has seen supporters come and go, perhaps none more crucially than Donald Trump himself, a former supporter of WikiLeaks.

DONALD TRUMP US PRESIDENT "Hillary Clinton documents released today by Wikileaks make more clear than ever just how much is at stake, in this election."

He's cooled on the organization, now that he's running the US government.

DONALD TRUMP US PRESIDENT "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing."

Assange's supporters say this is because Trump is following a long line of presidents who have fallen under the sway of the CIA.

JOHN KIRIAKOU FORMER CIA OFFICER "The CIA is very good at recruiting new presidents. What I mean by that is that when a president has little or no experience in intelligence or foreign affairs, they love that."

Assange spent over six years in the Ecuadorian embassy. Now, he may wonder how long he'll spend fighting to avoid being extradited to the US.

Toby Muse, CGTN, Washington.