Britain’s home secretary has signed a formal request for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be extradited to the United States, where he faces 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, in the first-ever case of a journalist or publisher being indicted under the World War I-era law. British courts will now decide whether to honor the extradition request. Assange is currently behind bars at London’s Belmarsh Prison for skipping bail in 2012, after being forcibly removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy by British police in April.