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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8037135/Julian-Assange-supporters-camp-ahead-WikiLeaks-founders-fight-against-extradition-US.html
Julian Assange, 48, wanted by the US Department of Justice over 18 charges
17 charges are alleged breaches of US Espionage Act and 1 of computer hacking
QC representing Donald Trump's Government says Assange's leaks risked lives
Some of those identified in documents now said to be missing and feared dead
Osama bin Laden 'had papers from WikiLeaks in bunker where he died in 2001'
Assange's defence calls extradition political and Trump wants his 'head on a pike'
His QC claims client would be a suicide risk in an 'inhuman and degrading' US jail
Julian Assange's father has said it is 'simply untrue' that his son's Wikileaks revelations put sources' lives in danger - as his US extradition battle yesterday was told he would be at a 'high risk' of suicide if he was sent to an American prison.
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Opening the case against the 48-year-old on Monday, James Lewis QC said some sources 'disappeared' after he put them at risk of 'serious harm, torture or even death'.
He told District Judge Vanessa Baraitser that information published by WikiLeaks was 'useful to an enemy' of the US - with material found at al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan when he was killed in a 2011 raid.
Responding after the hearing, Assange's father John Shipton said that 'do damage was done.'
He said: 'The essential element of the prosecution case was that the sources were endangered, that their sources were endangered, this is simply not true.
'In Chelsea Manning's trial the Pentagon spokesman under oath at the trial said that nobody was hurt. Robert Gates testimony before congress, Robert Gates is ex-secretary of defence, he said that yes it's embarrassing, yes it's awkward, but that no damage was done.'
Assange, who is being held in Belmarsh Prison after being dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy last year, appeared in the dock at the London court next door today for the first day of his extraordinary British legal face-off with Donald Trump's Government.
He is battling to avoid extradition to Virginia where he faces 18 charges and a jail term of up to 175 years for leaking state secrets in 250,000 classified documents published by WikiLeaks online in 2010.
But Assange's QC Edward Fitzgerald said extradition to an American prison extradition would be the 'height of inhumanity', exposing him to inhumane conditions in an American prison, leading to a high risk of suicide.