Free Assange rally at Parliament Square, London last June (Picture: Steve Eason)
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks co-founder who exposed US imperialist war crimes, could be extradited to the United States within days if his final appeal fails. His high court hearing is set for Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
Stella Assange, his wife, said before the hearing, “The situation is extremely grave. His health is in decline, mentally and physically. His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison, and if he’s extradited, he will die.
Assange’s “crime” was exposing atrocities committed by the US in the Afghan and Iraq wars.
Information provided by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to WikiLeaks from 2010 and 2011 included around 750,000 documents.
They revealed how the US military killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan. And leaked Iraq war files showed 66,000 civilians had been killed.
One video from 2007 showed a helicopter gunman attacking unarmed Iraqi civilians, killing Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen, Saeed Chmagh and nine other men. Two children were seriously wounded.
Assange has been in Belmarsh prison in south London since he was snatched from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019. He faces 175 years in prison if he is extradited.
Stella Assange said the case was “politically motivated” and that the “bogus extradition request” would have been thrown out by British authorities if it were made by any country other than the US.
“Julian will be put in a hole if he is extradited, there is no doubt about that. He will be put in a hole so far and deep in the ground that I don’t think I’ll ever see him again,” she said.
If his appeal is unsuccessful, Assange may apply to the European Court of Human Rights for a Rule 39 order to stop extradition while it considers his case.
The treaty being used to extradite Assange was originally enshrined in law by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 2003. It allows British citizens to be sent for trial in the US without any evidence against them.
A US court recently sentenced a former CIA spy agency software engineer to 40 years in prison for revealing information.
Joshua Schulte was convicted in July 2022 on four counts each of espionage and computer hacking and one count of lying to FBI agents, after giving classified materials to WikiLeaks in the so-called Vault 7 leak.
The documents showed how the CIA surveilled foreign governments and others by compromising their electronics and computer networks.
They included details of cooperation with British secret agencies to engineer a way to turn smart televisions into surveillance devices.
A decision to extradite Assange would set a dangerous precedent of criminalising those who speak out against the brutal crimes of imperialism. It will further intimidate those who could reveal, for example, British and US collaboration with genocide in Gaza.
Rishi Sunak, Joe Biden and their allies denounced the Russian regime’s treatment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last week. But they lock up Chelsea Manning and Assange for revealing their own murderous deeds.
Western states have thrown all their might at Assange, showing how desperate they are to cover up their crimes.
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