The government of US President Joe Biden has appealed against the refusal of British justice to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.
Read also: British justice denies freedom to Julian Assange
The appeal shows that Joe Biden has every intention of trying Mr. Assange for the massive release of confidential documents from 2009. Washington had until Friday to appeal the ruling of Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who had refused. on January 4 his extradition to the United States citing the risk of suicide of the founder of WikiLeaks in the American prison system.
"
Yes, we have appealed and we continue to seek his extradition,
" ministry spokesman Marc Raimondi told AFP.
Several human rights and press freedom organizations called on Joe Biden to drop the charges against Julian Assange, arguing that the charges "
threaten press freedom
”And would create a precedent likely to“
criminalize
”journalistic practices.
Julian Assange is under the blow of lawsuits launched under the presidency of Donald Trump, to whom the supporters of Julian Assange had asked to pardon him, in vain.
Under Barack Obama, who had Joe Biden for vice-president, American justice had given up on prosecuting the founder of WikiLeaks.
10 years ago, Joe Biden considered that Julian Assange was more like a “
high-tech terrorist
” than an heir to the “
Pentagon papers
” which revealed in the 1970s the lies of the United States about the war. from Vietnam.
The 49-year-old Australian is being held in the UK awaiting UK justice to consider the appeal and his fiancee Stella Morris has called on the UK Court of Appeal to dismiss the US claim.
"
Any assurance that the (US) Department of Justice could give on legal proceedings or the detention regime that Julian might risk in the United States would not only be unnecessary but also meaningless
," she said in a statement. .
Read also: Julian Assange: British justice examines his request for release
"
The United States has long been breaking its prisoner treatment commitments to countries that accept extradition, including the United Kingdom, as human rights organizations have documented on numerous occasions.
», He adds.
American justice wants to try him in particular for espionage, after the dissemination from 2010 of more than 700,000 classified documents on American military and diplomatic activities, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.