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WIKILEAKS HAS CALLED for the United States to drop charges against Julian Assange ahead of a judge’s decision on whether he will be extradited from the UK.
Assange, 49, who co-founded the website in 2006, faces an 18-count indictment, alleging a plot to hack computers and a conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.
The case follows WikiLeaks’s publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents in 2010 and 2011 relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables.
Prosecutors say Assange helped US defence analyst Chelsea Manning breach the Espionage Act, was complicit in hacking by others, and published classified information that put the lives of US informants in danger.
Assange denies plotting with Manning to crack an encrypted password on US Department of Defence computers and says there is no evidence anyone’s safety was put at risk.
He is set to appear at the Old Bailey on Monday, where District Judge Vanessa Baraitser will deliver her judgment on whether he should be extradited to face the charges in the US.
Assange’s lawyers have said he faces up to 175 years in jail if convicted, although the US government said the sentence was more likely to be between four and six years.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, said: “The mere fact that this case has made it to court let alone gone on this long is an historic, large-scale attack on freedom of speech.
“The US Government should listen to the groundswell of support coming from the mainstream media editorials, NGOs around the world such as Amnesty and Reporters Without Borders and the United Nations who are all calling for these charges to be dropped.
“This is a fight that affects each and every person’s right to know and is being fought collectively.”
Assange’s fiancee, Stella Moris, with whom he has two young sons, is expected to attend court on Monday along with his legal team.
She has been among supporters urging Donald Trump to pardon Assange before the end of his presidency.
Assange has been held in high security Belmarsh prison since he was carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London by police before being arrested for breaching his bail conditions in April last year.
He had entered the building in 2012 after exhausting all legal avenues to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sex offence allegations, which he has always denied and were eventually dropped.
Assange’s legal team claimed the prosecution under Trump’s administration was politically motivated after an investigation launched during Barack Obama’s presidency failed to bring charges.
During his 2016 election campaign against Hillary Clinton, Trump said “I love WikiLeaks” after the website published Russia-hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails.
Assange’s extradition hearing was told he was offered a pardon in August 2017, allegedly on behalf of the US president, in exchange for identifying the source of the emails.
The court also heard a security contractor was allegedly recruited by “American friends” to bug Assange’s meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy.
By December 2017, the US contacts were said to be “desperate”, and even discussed a potential kidnap or poison plot to end the stalemate.
The Old Bailey heard evidence Assange has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and psychiatrists for the defence said he suffers from severe depression and is a high suicide risk.
James Lewis QC, representing the US government, has said the hearing is “not a trial” and argued the defence submissions do not amount to a bar to Assange’s extradition.
The judge’s decision is likely to be appealed by the losing side.
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It’s shocking the man has been so publicly hunted and authorities have gotten away with it for this long. Serious injustice.
@John Harkin: would it be better if they did a sneaky fake suicide and silenced the media? The publicity is working in his favour!
Freedom of press & all media to report on state actions is fundamental to democracy.
Do not shoot the messengers, or lock them up.
If the subjects exposed cannot withstand critical debate, then they are not sound.
And the exposure of state secrets, which by definition are to gain or preserve advantage over other states, or within states, is a public service.
@William Kelly: and to those who support the state secrets acts, just be aware that there are very few state secrets that are not completly known to other states ,due to IT penetration & other espionage.
So it is mainly citizens who vote,who are kept in the dark, thus allowing freedom to those in power to mislead, to manipulate democratic processes, to declare war on dubious or false grounds, to suppress mis-government.
We need more WIKILEAKERS, not penal action against them.
The precedent set by any extradition of Assange to the US could be truly frightening. Remember that Assange is not American. Could then Saudi, Russia, China, US etc demand extraditions of British journalists for revealing crimes about them?
@grazer: Certainly wouldn’t have much of a problem with Irish people. Tho hard to imagine why they want to
It’s shocking that no matter the protests those in power just do not listen to the people any more it seems. They want to be able to get away with their wrongdoings without worry of being caught by someone like him.
Without Assange, so many government and military crimes would be concealed. No wonder they want him locked up forever. He is a hero.
Donald Trumo pardoning his mates when Assange and Snowden should be ones pardoned
I’m not sure your can pardon someone without a conviction in the US.
@Contrary Mary: It is unusual for a president to issue a prospective pardon before any charges are filed, but there are examples, perhaps most famously President Gerald R. Ford’s pardon in 1974 of Richard M. Nixon to prevent him from being prosecuted after the Watergate scandal. And in 1977, on his first day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned hundreds of thousands of men who had dodged the draft during the Vietnam War, enabling many who had fled to Canada to return home without fear of prosecution.
@Sean: very interesting thanks
In general, I’d be 100% supportive of Assange’s mission; his getting in to bed with Putin (twice) to massage his own ego kinda killed that for me though.
@Stephen Rogan: when did he get into bed with Putin? What nonsense.
@SC: where you think he was getting most of his intel from. He became a Kremlin propaganda stooge and was too silly or naive to know it.
@SC: the relationship began even before all that, when RT, that putin propaganda machine, gave him his own TV show, made in 2011 and broadcast in 2012. They had already surmised that his ego was his weakness. 4 years later, they had him convinced that the world – and the 2016 election – was in his hands alone, as they fed him all the data that they had hacked from the DNC, amongst others. He then used his platform and the Russian materials against Hillary and for Trump, exactly as Putin wanted it. No freedom fighter here; just another puppet on a string.
He is exactly where he deserves to be. Made his own bed.
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