The extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to resume in London on Monday, September 7th. Assange is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison, and if extradited to the US, the publisher faces up to 175 years in prison.
The US has indicted Assange on 17 counts of espionage and one count of conspiring with a source to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The charges are related to WikiLeaks’ dissemination of a trove of documents released in 2010 that revealed classified information about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US prison in Guantanamo Bay.
The information was provided to WikiLeaks by former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who spent more almost seven years in prison for the leaks before President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. Manning was jailed again in March 2019 for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, and was not released until March 2020.
If Assange, an Australian citizen, is extradited to the US and prosecuted, it will be the first time a journalist is tried under the 1917 Espionage Act, and it will set a grave precedent for press freedom in the US and around the world.
Throughout Assange’s lock-up at Belmarsh, the publisher’s family and experts have warned of his deteriorating health. Nils Melzer, a UN special rapporteur for torture, has likened Assange’s treatment to psychological torture.
How to follow the hearing:
Consortium News will be reporting on the hearing and live-tweeting throughout the process. Journalist Joe Lauria will be recapping each day on the CN Live! YouTube channel. The channel will also host a panel of experts every weekend while the hearing is ongoing; the trial is expected to last three to four weeks.
Any politician or political party that directs, makes, implies or in any way ascribes negative motives, actions or intent to Julian Assange will FOREVER lose my good will and my vote in almost any election or afirmative plebisite. This year I am voting 3rd party exclusively!!! The two party dualopoly seems to be a war and debt booster, morally bankrupt and ethically vacuous. More interested in projecting power & dominance than protecting people, the planet & common decency. Their record is deplorable!
Obama employed the espionage act more than all presidents combined to silence whistleblowers and journalists….where there is no independence of mind the truths despised
He did commute Manning’s sentence.
7 steps back, 1 step forward.
True. Still waiting for a step forward from Trump. Manning spent an extra year in prison during his watch. He did bring up pardoning Snowden but he was probably just trolling the democrats.
Remember liberals, you worshiped Mueller. Mueller’s only strategy was to paint Julian Assange as a Russian asset and hope enough Trump people talked to him. Cohn was locked up for misremembering emails to Wikileaks, or ‘Russian Wikileaks’ as liberal icon Hillary calls them.
For any liberal that supported Mueller to pretend they like Julian, is beyond the pale. Trump would love for Julian to tell everyone who gave him the DNC emails. But of course, he can’t pardon Assange due to the McCarthy Dems.
Still haven’t figured out what “liberal” means, eh?
“But of course, he can’t pardon Assange due to the McCarthy Dems.”
And the Republicans would back him?