WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to face a High Court in the United Kingdom next week in which prosecutors will attempt to overturn a previous court's decision to refuse extradition of Assange to the United States where he faces charges of leaking sensitive information. Ahead of the ruling, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's Secretary General, has spoken out, stating that the prosecution is politically motivated.
Assange founded WikiLeaks, a journalistic organisation that specialised in leaking classified information governments wished to keep secret. This included details of war crimes committed during the Iraq War.
Assange has since been indicted on charges of leaking sensitive information in the United States, which US prosecutors claim put at risk the lives of American servicepeople, an accusation that Assange and WikiLeaks deny. If convicted in the US, Assange would face the possibility of life in prison.
Amnesty International's Secretary General, said of Assange's case:
"Assurances by the US government that they would not put Julian Assange in a maximum security prison or subject him to abusive Special Administrative Measures were discredited by their admission that they reserved the right to reverse those guarantees. Now, reports that the CIA considered kidnapping or killing Assange have cast even more doubt on the reliability of US promises and further expose the political motivation behind this case… It is a damning indictment that nearly twenty years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail."
"The US government's unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange makes it clear that this prosecution is a punitive measure, but the case involves concerns which go far beyond the fate of one man and put media freedom and freedom of expression in peril. Journalists and publishers are of vital importance in scrutinising governments, exposing their misdeeds and holding perpetrators of human rights violations to account. This disingenuous appeal should be denied, the charges should be dropped, and Julian Assange should be released."
A UK court has already denied the extradition on human rights grounds.
Earlier this year it was revealed that senior members of the American establishment under the Trump administration had even discussed murdering Assange in an attempt to silence him.
[Based on reporting by: Amnesty International]
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