Biden says he's 'considering' ENDING the prosecution of Julian Assange after Australia urged U.S. to drop WikiLeaks founder's case

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he's considering ending the prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. 

In February, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese requested that the yearslong prosecution of Assange be ended and that he be returned to his native Australia.

Biden is entertaining a fellow member of the Quad, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, at the White House Wednesday for an official state visit. 

'We're considering it,' Biden told reporters when asked about Assange as he walked with Kishida along the colonnade of the White House after Wednesday's welcome ceremony on the South Lawn. 

Assange is in custody in the United Kingdom.

President Joe Biden (right) said he was 'considering' ending the prosecution of Julian Assange at Australia's request He answered a question about it as he walked Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (left) into the Oval Office Wednesday 

In February Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) requested that the U.S. drop its charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (right) and return him to his native Australia. He's in jail in the United Kingdom currently 

Thursday will mark five years since Assange has been in British custody. 

Assange is facing espionage charges in the United States after his 2010 publication of classified United States Army intelligence material, including footage of U.S. airstrikes in Baghdad, diplomatic cables and classified communications from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

One video showed a U.S. military helicopter killing civilians in Baghdad including two Reuters journalists, mistaking camera equipment for weapons. 

Wikileaks was provided the information by former U.S. Army intelligence officer Chelsea Manning, who initially was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was released in 2017 when President Barack Obama commuted her sentence. 

Biden, then the vice president, referred to Assange as a 'high-tech terrorist' in a December 2010 interview on Meet the Press. 

Assange was first arrested in London in 2010 as he was wanted for questioning by the Swedish, accused by two women of rape and sexual assault. 

In 2012, he was granted political amnesty at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and stayed there - essentially imprisoned in the house - until 2019, when the Ecuadorians revoked his amnesty. 

Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange protest outside the Australian High Commission in central London on Wednesday, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of his arrest by British police

At that time, members of the London Metropolitan Police entered the residence and arrested Assange. 

He was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion related to his involvement with Manning, a 2018 charge that had previously been unsealed. 

The Department of Justice added 17 espionage charges to the case in May 2018. 

The charges carried a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison. 

And in June 2020 a grand jury expanded the indictment of Assange, alleging he recruited and conspired with hackers to get information for Wikileaks. 

Since then, Assange and his legal team have fought efforts to have him extradited to the U.S. to face these charges.   

In February, Australia's Parliament approved a motion for Assange to be returned to Australia instead of being sent to the U.S. 

Albanese backed the move and had previously expressed frustration that Assange remained jailed while Manning, his source, has been free since 2017. 

'I hope this can be resolved. I hope it can be resolved amicably. It’s not up to Australia to interfere in the legal processes of other countries, but it is appropriate for us to put our very strong view that those countries need to take into account the need for this to be concluded,' Albanese said in February. 'Regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely.'