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 can be prone to therapy 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 dysfunction” and that he “is assessed as being prone to committing suicide.”
The listening to for Assange’s attainable closing authorized attraction difficult his extradition to the U.S. to face expenses for publishing labeled U.S. navy paperwork will likely be held on the Excessive Court docket 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 could possibly be sentenced to as much as 175 years in an American maximum-security jail.
“If extradited, he could possibly be detained in extended isolation whereas awaiting trial, or as an inmate. If convicted, he could possibly be sentenced to as much as 175 years in jail,” 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 can be prone to therapy amounting to torture. (AP)
Assange, 52, is dealing with 17 expenses for allegedly receiving, possessing and speaking labeled info to the general public underneath the Espionage Act, and one cost alleging a conspiracy to commit laptop 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 conflict crimes dedicated by the U.S. authorities within the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The supplies additionally uncovered cases of the CIA participating in torture and rendition.
WikiLeaks’ “Collateral Homicide” video displaying the U.S. navy gunning down civilians in Iraq, together with two Reuters journalists, was additionally printed 14 years in the past.
“The danger of being positioned in extended solitary confinement, regardless of his precarious psychological well being standing, and to obtain a doubtlessly disproportionate sentence raises questions as as to if Mr. Assange’s extradition to the US can be appropriate with the UK’s worldwide human rights obligations, significantly underneath article 7 of the Worldwide Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in addition to respective articles 3 of the U.N. Conference in opposition to Torture and the European Conference on Human Rights,” Edwards stated.
“Diplomatic assurances of humane therapy offered by the Authorities of the US usually are not a enough assure to guard Mr. Assange in opposition to such danger,” Edwards stated. “They don’t seem to be legally binding, are restricted of their scope, and the particular person the assurances intention to guard might don’t have any recourse if they’re 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 ladies as a result of Sweden wouldn’t present assurances it will shield him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations have been finally dropped.
Final month, a gaggle of Australian lawmakers wrote a letter to U.Okay. House 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 danger of persecution.
AUSTRALIAN MPS PEN LETTER URGING UK GOVERNMENT TO STOP JULIAN ASSANGE’S US EXTRADITION, CITING HEALTH CONCERNS
The U.N. Particular Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, stated Assange “suffers from a long-standing and recurrent depressive dysfunction” and that he “is assessed as being prone to committing suicide.” (Getty Pictures)
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 in opposition to 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 referred to as on the U.S. within the final 12 months to finish the prosecution of Assange.
No writer had been charged underneath 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 labeled 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 printed.
The editors and publishers of the U.S. and European retailers 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 Instances, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País — wrote an open letter in 2022 calling for the U.S. to drop the fees in opposition to Assange.
The Obama administration elected to not indict Assange in 2013 over WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of the labeled cables as a result of it will have needed to additionally indict journalists from main information retailers who printed 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 Division underneath former President Trump later moved to indict Assange underneath the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.
“I name on the Authorities of the UK to rigorously evaluate Mr. Assange’s extradition order with a view to making sure full compliance with absolutely the and non-derogable prohibition of refoulement to torture and different merciless, inhuman or degrading therapy or punishment and to take all the mandatory measures to safeguard Mr. Assange’s bodily and psychological well being,” Edwards stated.
The listening to for Assange’s attainable closing authorized attraction difficult his extradition to the U.S. will likely be held on the Excessive Court docket in London on Feb. 20 and 21. (Fox Information Digital/Landon Mion)
Assange’s lawyer within the U.Okay., Jennifer Robinson, has beforehand stated she fears he “wouldn’t 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 generally known as “Vault 7,” which have been leaked to Wikileaks, Yahoo reported in 2021. The company stated the leak represented “the most important knowledge loss in CIA historical past.”
The CIA was accused of getting discussions “on the highest ranges” 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 “choices.” The company additionally had superior plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political determination to cost him, in keeping with the Yahoo report.
WikiLeaks additionally printed 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.
