<\/p>\n
Julian Assange is being prosecuted for publishing sources\u2019 names and not his political opinions, lawyers representing the United States said on Wednesday as the WikiLeaks founder fights to stop his extradition<\/a> from Britain.<\/p>\n US prosecutors are seeking to put Assange, 52, on trial over WikiLeaks\u2019 high-profile release of vast troves<\/a> of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.<\/p>\n They argue the leaks imperilled the lives of their agents and there was no excuse for his criminality. Assange\u2019s supporters, however, hail him as a journalist and a hero who is being persecuted for exposing US wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Assange\u2019s lawyers told London\u2019s High Court on Tuesday that the case was politically motivated, arguing Assange was targeted for his exposure of \u201cstate-level crimes\u201d and that former US president Donald Trump had requested \u201cdetailed options\u201d on how to kill him.<\/p>\n But, on Wednesday, lawyers for the US said Assange\u2019s prosecution was \u201cbased on the rule of law and evidence\u201d.<\/p>\n Clair Dobbin told the court: \u201cThe appellant\u2019s prosecution might be unprecedented, but what he did was unprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n Assange \u201cindiscriminately and knowingly published to the world the names of individuals who acted as sources of information to the US\u201d, Dobbin said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is these facts which distinguish him, not his political opinions,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Dobbin also responded to Assange\u2019s lawyers who cited an alleged US plan to kidnap or murder Assange while he was in London\u2019s Ecuadorean embassy.<\/p>\n She said the United States had given assurances about how Assange would be treated that \u201cwholly undermine this suggestion \u2026 that anything could happen to him\u201d.<\/p>\n Dobbin argued that the material Wikileaks published was obtained by encouraging people to steal documents and contained unredacted names of US sources.<\/p>\n Therefore Assange could not be \u201ctreated as akin to an ordinary journalist or Wikileaks akin to an ordinary publisher\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n Assange is not an \u2018ordinary journalist\u2019<\/h2>\n