“This farce has to end,” claims the wife of the founder of Wikileaks next to the London court
MADRID, 20 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The lawyers of the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, have argued this Tuesday before the High Court in London that their client should not be extradited to the United States because he is being pursued for “political crimes” and there is a “real risk” that he will suffer an “flagrant” violation of their procedural rights.
In June 2022, the British Government authorized the transfer of Assange to the North American country, but the founder of Wikileaks is trying to exhaust all possible avenues to prevent his transfer. Two judges must now determine whether his case deserves a new examination or if, on the contrary, it is closed, which would leave the European Court of Human Rights as the final alternative.
The hearings started this Tuesday and will last for two days, without the presence of Assange, who according to his lawyers is absent for medical reasons. The vicinity of the court has been the scene of a support rally attended by Assange’s wife, Stella.
“There is no chance that he will receive a fair trial if he is extradited to the United States,” he warned. “This farce has to end,” she added to the media, where she presented some of the arguments that the lawyers have also tried to defend in court.
Those around him understand that giving free rein to extradition would imply “criminalizing investigative journalism”, since the accusations derive from secret material published in 2020 and 2021 by Wikileaks. Assange faces a battery of charges for violating the US Espionage Act and risks a sentence of up to 175 years in prison in a maximum security facility.
“It is an attack against the truth and the population’s right to know,” said Stella Assange, who has emphasized that her husband could suffer the same fate as the Russian opponent Alexei Navalni, who died last Friday in a prison in the Arctic, reports BBC public radio and television.
Lawyers have also questioned the legality of the extradition, based on a bilateral treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom. Lawyer Ed Fitzgerald has stated that “it is an abuse of process to seek extradition for a political crime,” a point that is explicitly mentioned in said treaty.
Fitzgerald has also announced that, if the process is resumed in the British courts, it will expose an alleged CIA plot to assassinate Assange during the years he was sheltered in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
“He is being prosecuted for carrying out a common practice in journalism of obtaining and publishing classified information, information that is true and of public interest,” he alleged.
