The founder of WikiLeaks, accused of espionage by Washington for making hundreds of thousands of military documents public in 2010 and 2011, has been detained for five years in the high-security British prison of Belmarsh. The High Court in London is due to consider his appeal request regarding possible extradition to the United States on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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With our correspondent in London, Émeline Vin
With drawn features, tears in her eyes, Stella Assange fears that her husband will lose his appeal. Julian Assange would then be extradited to the United States, which accuses him of espionage. “ Julian faces 175 years in prison. This is the possible punishment. One of the alleged sources of the WikiLeaks documents has just been sentenced to 40 years in prison. These are mafia methods! » she denounces.
A sentence which worries him all the more as the state of health of the founder of WikiLeaks continues to deteriorate, after a heart attack in 2021: “ His health is declining mentally and physically. His life is threatened every day he spends in prison. If he is extradited, he will die. »
According to the United Nations, the conditions of Julian Assange’s detention in the United States could amount to torture. For the new editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Kristinn Hraffnson, freedom of the press is also at stake: “ If Julian Assange is extradited, it will mean that no journalist around the world is safe from extradition to the United States and imprisonment.he emphasizes. We are talking here about an Australian journalist who published on European soil and threatened with detention in the United States. This means that any journalist, anywhere in the world, can be threatened “.
If British justice validates the extradition, Julian Assange’s team will refer it to the European Court of Human Rights.
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