His supporters have warned of the risks plaguing the life of the Wikileaks founder, who has been jailed in the UK for almost five years in a case that has been cast as a symbol of a threat to press freedom.
Published on February 20, 2024 06:50
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Julian Assange from his prison in London (United Kingdom), May 1, 2019. (DANIEL LEAL / AFP)
Starting Tuesday, February 20, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is attempting to make a final appeal to the British judiciary against his extradition to the United States, which wants to put him on trial over a massive document leak. As the hearing approaches, his supporters warned of the risks hanging on the life of the 52-year-old Australian, who has been detained in the United Kingdom for almost five years in a case that has been cast as a symbol of a threat to press freedom.
“If he loses, there will be no possibility of appeal in the UK,” his wife Stella Assange, with whom he had two children while he was reclusive in the embassy, told the BBC British Capital on Monday. “We hope we have time to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights” to intervene, she stressed. If he is extradited, “he will die,” she said last week.
In January 2021, the British judiciary initially ruled in favor of the Wikileaks founder. Judge Vanessa Baraitser pointed to Julian Assange's risk of suicide and refused to give the green light to extradition. But this decision was later reversed.
Up to 175 years in prison
To reassure him about the treatment he was receiving, the United States assured him that he would not be imprisoned in the high-security ADX prison in Florence, Colorado, nicknamed “Alcatraz of the Rocky Mountains,” and that he would receive the necessary clinical and psychological care. The Americans had also raised the possibility that he could apply to serve his sentence in Australia.
These guarantees convinced the British judiciary, but not Julian Assange's supporters, who denounce political prosecutions. He faces up to 175 years in prison and is charged with publishing more than 700,000 classified documents since 2010 about U.S. military and diplomatic activities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among them was a video showing civilians, including two Portal journalists, being killed by fire from an American helicopter gunship in Iraq in July 2007. These documents were obtained thanks to the American soldier Chelsea Manning. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison by a court-martial in August 2013 and released after seven years after Barack Obama commuted the sentence.