An offer of asylum, formulated publicly in January 2021, had been served in December 2020 by the President of the Mexican Republic on Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks whose extradition the United States is requesting
Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador formalized his proposal to offer asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a letter sent to ex-US President Donald Trump in December 2020, the reports revealed on Tuesday. Mexican authorities.
“If you accept my request, the government of Mexico is prepared to provide the necessary facilities for Mr. Assange to travel immediately to my country where he will be received as a refugee,” AMLO – his initials and nickname – wrote to President Trump. according to this letter dated December 23, 2020. This proposal will not represent a “threat” for the United States nor will it affect their “interests”, adds the Mexican president.
“Although he was wrong in his behavior, he is a person driven by ideals and principles, and I think that because of this he should deserve compassion”, added the Mexican president, who repeated his Monday. plea in favor of Assange. Assange’s lawyers are aware of the asylum offer but cannot currently consider it for “procedural reasons,” Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday.
Assange on appeal
Mexico had publicly announced its offer of asylum to Julian Assange a year ago, on January 4, 2021. The founder of Wikileaks has been held in a high-security prison near London for two and a half years. He was arrested by British police in April 2019 after spending seven years in the London Embassy in Ecuador where he had taken refuge while on bail.
Lawyers for the WikiLeaks founder began appeal proceedings to the UK Supreme Court on Thursday, hoping to prevent his extradition to the United States, his fiancee said on December 23.
Washington accuses him of having circulated, as of 2010, more than 700,000 classified documents on American military and diplomatic activities, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecuted in particular for espionage, he risks if he is tried in the United States up to 175 years in prison.
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