O President of the United States, Joe Biden, said this Wednesday that the country is considering the possibility of ‘dropping’ the charges against the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.
The statements, cited by international publications, come after Washington received an appeal from the Australian government. Asked about this request, Biden responded: “We are to consider.”
The 52-year-old Australian has been held at Belmarsh maximum security prison in London for five years. People close to Assange have warned in recent weeks of his deteriorating physical and mental health.
Last month, a court in the United Kingdom postponed Assange’s extradition to the United States, saying that “satisfactory guarantees” were needed that he would be authorized to invoke the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects freedom of expression, and that he would not be prejudiced in the trial and sentence due to his nationality, being granted the same protections that a North American citizen would have. The court also wanted assurances that the death penalty would not be imposed.
The wife of the founder of Wikileaks pointed out that Washington should not give any guarantees, but rather “give up the shameful case”. “Julian should never have been imprisoned for a single day. This is a shame for any democracy”pointed out Stella Assange.
American justice wants to try Julian Assange for having published more than 700,000 confidential documents on US military and diplomatic activities since 2010, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the documents is a video showing a North American combat helicopter shooting at civilians in July 2007, resulting in more than a dozen deaths, including two journalists from the Reuters news agency.
Under the 1917 US Espionage Act invoked by US authorities, the 52-year-old Australian could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.
Julian Assange was arrested by British police in 2019, after seven years in voluntary exile at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden in a rape investigation, closed in the same year.
In January 2021, the British court initially ruled in favor of the founder of the WikiLeaks portal. Citing a risk of suicide, Judge Vanessa Baraitser refused to give the extradition the green light, but the decision was later reversed and approved by the British Government in June 2022.
[Notícia atualizada às 17h37]
Read Also: China stands in solidarity with Assange and calls for a fair trial
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Source: https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/mundo/2538106/biden-diz-que-eua-consideram-desistir-de-acusacoes-contra-assange
