During a hearing before the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, Julian Assange's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, requested Thursday that the founder of Wikileaks not be extradited to the United States arguing that the alleged crimes of his defendant have a political character. The defense lawyer also reiterated his complaints about the "big problems" his team faces in contacting Assange in prison and recalled that the Australian journalist does not have access to a suitable computer to prepare his argument. The U.S. authorities accuse him of conspiring to hack government computers and extract secret documents, which would have been published at the WikiLeaks portal.