Julian Assange was denied bail by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Wednesday, just days after the judge blocked his extradition to the US.

Assange faces espionage charges in the US and spent almost a year-and-a-half in a UK prison while awaiting the extradition ruling. On Monday, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser refused extradition mainly because of how US prison conditions would affect Assange’s mental health.

The decision to deny bail was primarily based on the right of the US to appeal the earlier ruling preventing extradition. At the bail hearing on Wednesday, Baraitser declared that there were “substantial grounds” to believe that Assange would abscond and therefore must be denied bail, “as a matter of fairness.” She used as evidence Assange’s history of hiding in the Ecuadorean embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Supporters criticized the denial of bail, with Nils Muižnieks, Amnesty International’s Europe Director, stating, “Today’s decision to refuse Julian Assange’s bail application renders his ongoing detention ‘arbitrary’ and compounds the fact that he has endured punishing conditions in high security detention at Belmarsh prison for more than a year.” He further criticized the imprisonment prior to the ruling on extradition, calling the espionage charges, “politically-motivated” and not something that the UK should assist.

The US is set to appeal the extradition ruling, as they have 14 days from the Monday of the ruling to do so.