WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been targeted by the US because he exposed state crimes and Donald Trump had asked to be given options on how to deal with him, his lawyers said today as they fight to stop his extradition from Britain.

US prosecutors are seeking to put 52-year-old Assange on trial on 18 charges related to WikiLeaks’ release of major classified US military files and diplomatic cables.

Ythey claim the leaks put the lives of his agents at riskand that there is no justification for his criminal action. Assange’s supporters see him as an anti-establishment hero and journalist who is being prosecuted for exposing wrongdoing by the US.

Launching what could be his last bid to stop his extradition from Britain to the United States at the High Court in London, Assange’s lawyers and wife said his case was politically motivated and an attack on everyone of journalists.

Stella Assange likened his case to that of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition activist who died in prison on Friday while serving a 19-year sentence.

“Julian is a political prisoner and his life is in danger. What happened to Navalny can happen to Julian,” he told reporters outside the court where a large crowd called for his release. Assange himself was not in court or watching remotely because he is not in good health.

Australian Julian Assange’s legal battles began in 2012 and then passed spent seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London before emerging and being jailed in 2019 for violating the terms of his release.

Since then He is being held in a maximum security prison in Londonhe even got married there, while Britain finally approved his extradition to the US in 2022.

His legal team is trying to overturn that decision in a two-day hearing. His lawyers argue that previous judges have failed to deal with his case and that the extradition is politically motivated and a deliberate attempt to punish and silence him for exposing “state-level crimes” by the US.

“Mr Assange is being prosecuted because he engaged in ordinary journalistic practices of obtaining and publishing classified information which is true and of public interest,” Edward Fitzgerald, head of Assange’s legal team, told the court.

He said that the assange sentence, if convicted, he could face up to 175 years, but is likely to face at least 30 or 40 years.

His colleague Mark Summers said there was evidence to suggest there was a “truly breathtaking plan” to kidnap or kill Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy, ​​and that former US President Trump had asked for “detailed options” for to his murder.

In 2021, Yahoo News reported that CIA officials had prepared options for the Trump administration to deal with Assange while he was at the embassy in London.

“Senior CIA officials asked for plans, the president himself asked for options on how to do it, and there were even sketches,” the lawyer said today.

In their written interventions, the lawyers for the US government they said their case against him was “consistently and repeatedly distorted” by Assange’s legal team.

They said he is not being prosecuted for publishing the leaked material, but why aided and abetted with former military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain it illegally and then reveal names and sources “putting those individuals at great risk of harm.”

If Assange wins this case, a full appeal hearing will be held to reconsider his appeal. If he loses it, his only option is the European Court of Human Rights, and Stella Assange said his lawyers would appeal to European judges for injunctions if necessary.

WikiLeaks he first came into the limelight in 2010 when he released a US military video showing an Apache attack in Baghdad in 2007 that killed about a dozen people, including two members of the Reuters news team.

Subsequently released thousands of secret files and diplomatic cables which often revealed highly critical US assessments of world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

Assange’s supporters include Amnesty International, media groups and politicians such as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who last week voted in favor of a motion calling for his return to Australia.