WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is not getting the time he needs with his legal team to discuss his fight against extradition to the United States, causing delays to the case, his lawyer has told a British court. After skipping bail in Britain, Assange spent seven years holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London before he was dragged out by police in April last year. He is being held in a British jail pending the U.S. extradition case, having served a sentence for skipping bail. The United States wants him extradited to face 18 charges including conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law. He could spend decades in prison if convicted. The 48-year-old Australian appeared for the hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court wearing glasses and a dark blazer over a light top. He spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth to the judge and saluted his supporters in the public gallery at the beginning and end of the hearing. Assange’s lawyer Gareth Peirce said the difficulty in getting time with Assange had delayed the case, telling the court: “This slippage in the timetable is extremely worrying”. He fled to Ecuador’s embassy in 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden to face sex crimes accusations that were dropped last year. He says the US charges against him are a political attempt to silence journalists and publishers, and that the Swedish allegations were part of a plot to catch him. Assange made global headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified US military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff. Judge Vanessa Baraitser said Assange could have time to speak to his lawyer and appear in court again later in the day.