Stella Assange speaks about her fears for her husband if he is allowed to be extradited to the United States following an upcoming hearing in London.
Julian Assange’s wife fears for the founder’s life de WikiLeaks if he is extradited to the United States while a hearing on espionage charges looms.
Before the February 20 hearing, Assange’s wife, Stella Assange, told Byline Times his fears that “he would be sent to the same country that conspired to murder him in the United Kingdom” and that “once extradited, he would be placed in some form of solitary confinement, conditions that would lead anyone to take their own life.”
He said: “There is no prospect of a fair trial because he will be tried for exercising the democratic duty of informing the public about state-sanctioned criminality. The threat to his life is clear and present.
“Julian will be tried in the Eastern District of Virginia, where most jurors work or have family members who work for government agencies, such as the FBI, CIA and NSA, the same agencies implicated in the plans to assassinate him.”
The Australian journalist has been imprisoned in Belmarsh prison, southeast London, since April 2019. Depending on the outcome of the hearing, he could receive a sentence of 175 years in the United States if he is deported for exposing war crimes in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Assange is accused of publishing material provided by US military whistleblower Chelsea Manning that reveals torture, murder, the prisoner list at Guantanamo Bay and US rules for airstrikes.
Manning was pardoned by President Barack Obama and released in May 2017 after serving seven years in prison. The Obama administration decided not to press charges against Assange due to the “problem of New York Times ”. The advice was that there was no distinction between the editorial activities of WikiLeaks and those of New York Times . The charges were then revived during President Donald Trump’s administration.
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Since then, the 52-year-old has been confined to a high-security ward in Belmarsh, separated from his wife (whom he married in 2022) and two young children.
Previously, Assange lived in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after being granted asylum to avoid extradition to the United States. There was an order to remove him to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault, but he was never charged and the case has since been dropped. Assange’s legal team feared he would be extradited domestically to the United States if he went to Sweden.
He was then arrested in April 2019 by UK police at the embassy.
Stella Assange is alarmed by the conditions her husband will face if he is deported to the United States.
She told him Byline Times : “No family can prepare for something like this. The conditions in which he would be held in the United States amount to torture. The newly appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture recently issued a statement calling on the UK to release Julian and block extradition.
“Julian has been detained in one form or another since 2010. The US case carries a sentence of 175 years. The message is: he publishes evidence of war crimes and corruption at the highest levels and he will be hunted down and imprisoned.
“Julián is a strong man but he is not superhuman. “What they are doing to him is unworthy of any democracy.”
Assange submitted a request to attend the hearing in person so he could communicate with his legal team, but his wife said they have not yet been informed if this will be granted.
His legal team maintains that the extradition case is politically motivated and has cited media reports about CIA plans to assassinate and kidnap Assange. He has also exposed the security company previously employed to protect him while he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy for spying on him on behalf of the CIA and illegally removing Assange’s legal files from the embassy.
The two-day hearing is likely to be Assange’s last chance to escape deportation to the United States, where he will be held in a high-security prison awaiting trial. There are fears that the extradition treaty it has with the United Kingdom could allow the United States to add or modify charges that could expose Julian Assange to the death penalty.
“This is the last step in the UK courts,” his wife said. “It will determine whether Julian can hear his appeal in the UK or whether it is the end of the road in this country. If the appeal is rejected, he will attempt to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights. “However, there is serious concern about the climate surrounding the UK Government’s accession to the ECHR.”
Supporters are calling the event “World X Day: It’s now or never” and are urging people to protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Demonstrations by civil society organizations are also planned in different parts of the country and in other parts of the world.
If successful, the United States will have successfully used its Espionage Act of 1917 for the first time against a journalist and editor, prosecuted for obtaining or publishing American state secrets. Assange’s lawyers say extradition would cross a new legal frontier and expose him to an unpredictable extension of criminal law.
Speaking from the European Parliament in Strasbourg, at the launch of an exhibition to highlight her husband’s status as the world’s most awarded journalist, Stella Assange added: “This case is an unprecedented abuse of the law to imprison a journalist for do journalism. Julián is being prosecuted for the same reasons why he has received so much journalistic praise. He is the most awarded journalist in history. The only way forward is for the charges to be dropped.”
The consequences for investigative journalism could be chilling and far-reaching, founder’s team maintains de WikiLeaks. He believes it “will pose an existential threat to the free press, as other countries will be able to argue that they too should be allowed to extradite UK journalists and editors for violating their censorship or secrecy laws.”
In the United States, as a non-national, Assange would not be eligible to use the First Amendment (freedom of speech) protection normally afforded to defendants.
“This is an unprecedented prosecution in relation to protected expression, which constitutes a serious breach of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the ECHR and should halt extradition,” his team said.
“The jurisprudence of the ECtHR recognizes the vital role that the publication of state secrets can play in a democratic society and that criminal prosecution and conviction for such publications will deter the press from playing this ‘public watchdog’ role.”
2024-03-10 00:09:07
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