The London High Court on Friday overturned the refusal to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who Washington wants to try for a massive leak of documents, to the United States.
The courtyard “authorize the call” formed by the United States, said Judge Tim Holroyde, which means that the first instance decision is set aside and the British courts will have to rule again on the American extradition request.
Russia immediately denounced this decision: “This shameful decision in a political case against a journalist and a public figure is a further illustration of the cannibalistic worldview of the Anglo-Saxon tandem”Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told her Telegram account.
“The West celebrated with dignity the International Human Rights Day (December 10, editor’s note) and the end of the ‘Summit for Democracy'”, she quipped, referring to a virtual summit organized by US President Joe Biden which ends on Friday.
Moscow and Washington clash
Moscow regularly defends Julian Assange, whom it presents as a champion of press freedom.
The United States, for its part, accuses it of having disseminated, as of 2010, more than 700,000 classified documents on American military and diplomatic activities, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2016, at a key moment in the US presidential campaign, Wikileaks also published thousands of hacked emails from Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s team, which contributed to her defeat to Donald Trump.
This episode fueled suspicions of collusion between Moscow and Julian Assange, who also regularly collaborated with the Kremlin-owned RT television channel.
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