A United Nations knowledgeable on torture is looking on the U.Okay. authorities to halt the attainable extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S., citing considerations that he could be prone to remedy amounting to torture or different types of ill-treatment or punishment.
The U.N. Particular Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, stated in a press launch that Assange “suffers from a long-standing and recurrent depressive disorder” and that he “is assessed as being at risk of committing suicide.”
The listening to for Assange’s attainable ultimate authorized enchantment difficult his extradition to the U.S. to face costs for publishing categorised U.S. navy paperwork will likely be held on the Excessive Courtroom in London on Feb. 20 and 21. If he’s extradited to the U.S. after exhausting all his authorized appeals, Assange would face trial in Alexandria, Virginia, and might be sentenced to as much as 175 years in an American maximum-security jail.
“If extradited, he could be detained in prolonged isolation while awaiting trial, or as an inmate. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison,” Edwards stated.
UK HIGH COURT SETS DATE FOR JULIAN ASSANGE’S FINAL APPEAL CHALLENGING US EXTRADITION
A United Nations knowledgeable on torture is looking on the U.Okay. authorities to halt the attainable extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S., citing considerations that he could be prone to remedy amounting to torture. (AP)
Assange, 52, is dealing with 17 costs for allegedly receiving, possessing and speaking categorised data to the general public below the Espionage Act, and one cost alleging a conspiracy to commit pc intrusion.
The fees have been introduced by the Trump administration’s Justice Division over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of cables leaked by U.S. Military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning detailing struggle crimes dedicated by the U.S. authorities within the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The supplies additionally uncovered situations of the CIA partaking in torture and rendition.
WikiLeaks’ “Collateral Murder” video exhibiting the U.S. navy gunning down civilians in Iraq, together with two Reuters journalists, was additionally revealed 14 years in the past.
“The risk of being placed in prolonged solitary confinement, despite his precarious mental health status, and to receive a potentially disproportionate sentence raises questions as to whether Mr. Assange’s extradition to the United States would be compatible with the United Kingdom’s international human rights obligations, particularly under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as respective articles 3 of the U.N. Convention against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights,” Edwards stated.
“Diplomatic assurances of humane treatment provided by the Government of the United States are not a sufficient guarantee to protect Mr. Assange against such risk,” Edwards stated. “They are not legally binding, are limited in their scope, and the person the assurances aim to protect may have no recourse if they are violated.”
Assange, an Australian journalist and writer, has been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Jail since he was faraway from the Ecuadorian Embassy on April 11, 2019, for breaching bail situations. He had sought asylum on the embassy since 2012 to keep away from being despatched to Sweden over allegations he raped two girls as a result of Sweden wouldn’t present assurances it will defend him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations have been ultimately dropped.
Final month, a bunch of Australian lawmakers wrote a letter to U.Okay. Dwelling Secretary James Cleverly demanding Assange’s U.S. extradition be halted over considerations about his security and well-being. The letter requested the U.Okay. authorities to make an impartial evaluation of Assange’s threat of persecution.
The U.N. Particular Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, stated Assange “suffers from a long-standing and recurrent depressive disorder” and that he “is assessed as being at risk of committing suicide.” (Getty Photos)
A cross-party delegation of Australian lawmakers additionally visited Washington, D.C., final 12 months and met with U.S. officers, members of Congress and civil rights teams to demand the fees towards Assange be dropped. A number of bipartisan efforts have been additionally made final 12 months by U.S. lawmakers who demanded Assange’s launch.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has additionally repeatedly known as on the U.S. within the final 12 months to finish the prosecution of Assange.
No writer had been charged below the Espionage Act till Assange, and plenty of press freedom teams have stated his prosecution units a harmful precedent supposed to criminalize journalism. U.S. prosecutors and critics of Assange have argued WikiLeaks’ publication of categorised materials put the lives of U.S. allies in danger, however there isn’t a proof that anybody was put at risk on account of the paperwork being revealed.
The editors and publishers of the U.S. and European shops that labored with Assange on the publication of excerpts from greater than 250,000 paperwork he obtained within the Cablegate leak — The Guardian, The New York Occasions, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País — wrote an open letter in 2022 calling for the U.S. to drop the fees towards Assange.
The Obama administration elected to not indict Assange in 2013 over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of the categorised cables as a result of it will have needed to additionally indict journalists from main information shops who revealed the identical supplies. Former President Obama additionally commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence for violations of the Espionage Act and different offenses to seven years in January 2017, and Manning, who had been imprisoned since 2010, was launched later that 12 months.
However the Justice Department below former President Trump later moved to indict Assange below the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.
“I call on the Government of the United Kingdom to carefully review Mr. Assange’s extradition order with a view to ensuring full compliance with the absolute and non-derogable prohibition of refoulement to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and to take all the necessary measures to safeguard Mr. Assange’s physical and mental health,” Edwards stated.
The listening to for Assange’s attainable ultimate authorized enchantment difficult his extradition to the U.S. will likely be held on the Excessive Courtroom in London on Feb. 20 and 21. (Fox Information Digital/Landon Mion)
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Assange’s lawyer within the U.Okay., Jennifer Robinson, has beforehand stated she fears he “would not survive if extradited to the U.S.”
Beneath the Trump administration, the CIA allegedly had plans to kill Assange over the publication of delicate company hacking instruments often called “Vault 7,” which have been leaked to Wikileaks, Yahoo reported in 2021. The company stated the leak represented “the largest data loss in CIA history.”
The CIA was accused of getting discussions “at the highest levels” of the administration about plans to assassinate Assange in London and allegedly adopted orders from then-CIA director Mike Pompeo to attract up kill “sketches” and “options.” The company additionally had superior plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political resolution to cost him, in accordance with the Yahoo report.
WikiLeaks additionally revealed inner communications in 2016 between the Democratic Nationwide Committee and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s marketing campaign that exposed the DNC’s makes an attempt to spice up Clinton in that 12 months’s Democratic main.
