The Julian Assange saga is due to reach some sort of conclusion today when Woolwich Crown Court begins hearing a request from the US government to extradite him on charges of publishing classified documents. The Wikileaks founder was arraigned almost 10 years ago under a European Arrest Warrant issued by Sweden alleging rape and three sexual assaults. Rather than surrender himself to the British police he sought sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for eight years. Mr Assange and his followers said the warrant was a ruse to get him into custody, whereupon he would be sought by America over the leaking of cables and other diplomatic papers connected to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sweden has now dropped the charges against him and yet he still faces removal to the US which suggests that his suspicions were well founded. However, the Swedes say they only discontinued the case because the memories of witnesses had faded and they still regarded the evidence as credible and reliable. Assange has always denied the charges. His supporters detect “dark forces” at work to mete out punishment for the role

Wikileaks played in exposing American abuses during the conflicts. When Assange was trying to evade the charges against him in Sweden he was placing himself above a law that applied to everyone else. But now that these have been dropped, is he any different to a journalist publishing secret documents that exposed state shortcomings and wrong-doing? The issue is how he came about the documents. The US allege he conspired with Chelsea Manning, then a US intelligence analyst, to hack into a secret Pentagon network to access classified material.

Were a journalist to do that in Britain it would be illegal, though a public interest defence could be mounted. This case will raise questions over the balance of power in the 2003 Extradition Treaty between the UK and the US. The family of Harry Dunn, killed in a collision with a car allegedly driven by Anne Sacoolas, an American claiming diplomatic immunity to avoid extradition, are angry at what they see as the lack of reciprocity.

The PM has conceded that elements of the extradition relationship between Britain and the US are “unbalanced” though he has insisted the question of diplomatic immunity is separate. The country may not see it that way if Assange is extradited yet the Dunn family receive no justice.