Julian Assange, the 50-year-old founder of Wikileaks, is a step closer to being extradited from Britain to the United States after the U.S. government won an appeal in London’s High Court.

Iran PressEurope: Washington accuses Assange of 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks' release of vast troves of confidential US military records, including classified military and diplomatic files in 2010 about US bombing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq that proved highly embarrassing for Washington.

The US, which had challenged a decision made in January against his extradition, won the appeal at the High Court in London on Friday. Two appeal judges accepted Washington's assurances that Assange would not face the strictest measures before trial or after conviction.

Such assurances were "solemn undertakings offered by one government to another," according to one of the judges, Timothy Holroyde.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday called the British court's decision to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States "shameful."

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In January, the court blocked the extradition because Assange would be a suicide risk if he were moved to the United States and held in isolation.

Assange, who denies any wrongdoing, was not in court. He remains in London's high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has been for more than two and a half years.

"This shameful verdict in this political case against a journalist and public figure is another manifestation of the cannibalistic worldview of the Anglo-Saxon tandem," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on a social media channel.

Reporters without Borders (RSF) also condemned the decision, calling for Assange's immediate release.

"We condemn today's decision, which will prove historic for all the wrong reasons," said RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire. "We fully believe that Julian Assange has been targeted for his contributions to journalism, and we defend this case because of its dangerous implications for the future of journalism and press freedom around the world," he added.

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