US: Free speech no excuse for crimes of WikiLeaks' Assange

LONDON (AP) — The U.S. government began outlining its extradition case against Julian Assange in a London court on Monday, arguing that the WikiLeaks founder is not a free-speech champion but an “ordinary” criminal who put many lives at risk with his secret-spilling.

U.S. authorities want to try Assange on espionage charges that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison over the 2010 publication of hundreds of thousands of secret military documents and diplomatic cables. Assange argues he was acting as a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection.

Lawyer James Lewis, representing the U.S. government, called WikiLeaks' 2010 document deluge “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”

“Reporting or journalism is not an excuse for criminal activities or a license to break ordinary criminal laws," he said.

Dozens of Assange supporters protested outside the high-security courthouse,chanting and setting off a horn as District Judge Vanessa Baraitser began hearing the case. Assange, 48, watched proceedings from the dock in the courtroom at Woolwich Crown Court — brought there from Belmarsh Prison next door, where he has been imprisoned for 10 months.

Just before the lunch break, Assange complained that he was having difficulty concentrating and called the noise from outside “not helpful.”

The extradition hearing follows years of subterfuge, diplomatic dispute and legal drama that have led the Australian computer expert from fame as an international secret-spiller through self-imposed exile inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to incarceration in a maximum-security British prison.

Assange has been indicted in the U.S. on 18 charges over the publication of classified documents. Prosecutors...