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‘It is time Julian Assange was brought home,’ reiterates Australian premier

Anthony Albanese's statement comes as 2-day hearing to contest Wikileaks founder's extradition to US began on Tuesday

Islam Uddin |21.02.2024 - 


ANKARA

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday said it was time that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was brought home amid his extradition attempts to the US.

Reacting to his possible extradition, Albanese said he had raised this issue at the "highest levels" with the US and UK.

"I have put the view very clearly, privately, as I have publicly, that enough is enough. It's time Julian Assange was brought home. I've engaged with his legal team on a regular basis as well, on a strategy to try to get through this and come out the other side in Mr. Assange's interest," he told ABC Radio during an interview.

Albanese's statement came amid an ongoing two-day hearing of Assange, which could be his last chance to contest his extradition from Britain to the US.

The Australian prime minister said his government engaged with both countries diplomatically and is working to achieve an outcome rather than create a headline.

"It's a legal process in another country. So, that is why, both with the US and the UK, we have to engage diplomatically. We certainly have done so," he said.

Last week, the Australian parliament also passed a resolution calling for Assange, who is an Australian citizen, to be allowed to return to his home country.

Assange, who has been detained in a UK prison since 2019, faces extradition over allegations of leaking classified military documents in 2010-2011.

The UK High Court, in a pivotal 2021 ruling, decreed that Assange should be extradited, dismissing assertions over his fragile mental state and the risks he might face in a US correctional facility.

Following suit, the Supreme Court in 2022 upheld the decision, while then-Home Secretary Priti Patel affirmed the extradition order, intensifying the legal battle.

In his latest bid for a reprieve, Assange is seeking authorization to scrutinize Patel's determination and challenge the initial 2021 court verdict.

Should this recourse falter, Assange would exhaust all available avenues for appeal within the UK legal system, thus triggering the extradition process.

Assange targeted by US and Trump over his WikiLeaks exposures, lawyer says

21 February 2024 - 

BY SAM TOBIN AND MICHAEL HOLDEN

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's supporters demonstrate against U.S. extradition in front of the British Consulate in Barcelona, Spain February 20, 2024.
Image: REUTERS/Nacho Doce

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was targeted by the US over his exposure of state-level crimes, and Donald Trump had requested options on how to deal with him, his lawyers said on Tuesday as they battle to stop his extradition from Britain.

US prosecutors are seeking to put Assange, 52, on trial on 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks' high-profile release of vast troves of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.

They argue the leaks imperilled the lives of their agents and there is no excuse for his criminality. Assange's supporters hail him as an anti-establishment hero and a journalist, who is being persecuted for exposing US wrongdoing.

At the start of what could be his last chance to stop his extradition from Britain to the US at London's High Court, Assange's lawyers and wife said the case was politically motivated and an attack on all journalists.

Stella Assange likened his case to that of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition activist who died in prison on Friday while serving a three-decade sentence.

“Julian is a political prisoner and his life is at risk. What happened to Navalny can happen to Julian,” she told reporters outside court where a large crowd called for his release. Assange himself was not in court nor watching remotely because he was unwell.

The Australian's legal battles began in 2010, and he subsequently spent seven years holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London before he was dragged out and jailed in 2019 for breaching bail conditions.

He has been held in a maximum-security jail in London ever since, even getting married there, while Britain finally approved his extradition to the US in 2022.

His legal team is trying to overturn that approval at a two-day hearing. Their argument is that previous judges failed to address their case that the extradition was politically-motivated and a deliberate attempt to punish and silence him for exposing US “state-level crimes”.

“Mr Assange is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practices of obtaining and publishing classified information which is true and of public interest,” Edward Fitzgerald, Assange's lead lawyer, told the court.

He said, if convicted, Assange could be given a sentence as long as 175 years, but likely to be at least 30 to 40 years.

His colleague Mark Summers said there was evidence there had been a “truly breathtaking plan” to kidnap or murder Assange while he was in the Ecuadorean embassy, and former US President Trump had asked for “detailed options” to kill him.

In 2021, Yahoo News reported CIA officials had drawn up options for Trump's administration for dealing with Assange while he was in the London embassy.

“Senior CIA officials requested plans, the president himself requested on being provided with options on how to do it and sketches were even drawn up,” the lawyer said on Tuesday.

US SAYS CASE MISREPRESENTED

In their written submissions, lawyers for the US said their case against him was “consistently and repeatedly misrepresented” by Assange's legal team.

They said he was not being prosecuted for publication of the leaked materials, but for aiding and conspiring with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to unlawfully obtain them, then disclosing names of sources and “putting those individuals at grave risk of harm”.

If Assange wins this case, a full appeal hearing will be held to again consider his challenge. If he loses, his only remaining option would be at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and Stella Assange said his lawyers would apply to the European judges for an emergency injunction if necessary.

WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 when it published a US military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.

It then released thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables that laid bare often highly critical US appraisals of world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

Assange's supporters include Amnesty International, media groups and politicians including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who last week voted in favour of a motion calling for his return to Australia.

Reuters