"Julian Assange's fate has been sealed as UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has formally approved his extradition to the United States, following a years-long legal saga in which the WikiLeaks founder's legal team has pursued every avenue of the courts and appeal to fight the US request.

Held at London's Belmarsh prison since his being taken out of the Ecuadoran embassy in April 2019, the 50-year-old Assange is now the closest he's ever been to being handed over to American custody, where it's expected he would face US legal proceedings and a likely conviction on multiple spying-related charges, eventually being sent to a federal supermax facility, specifically the ADX Florence Supermax. The Home Office has said in wake of Patel's ruling that Assange has 14 days to appeal the decision.

It affirmed that the courts found that US extradition would not be 'incompatible with his human rights' and crucially that in US custody 'he will be treated appropriately' – this after the prior most successful legal challenge his defense mounted hinged on his facing cruel and possibly torturous conditions inside the US prison system, specifically the highly isolated life inside ADX Florence confinement.