Published time: 13 Jun, 2019
09:02Edited time: 13 Jun, 2019 10:33
© Global Look Press / /ZUMAPRESS.com
/ Wiktor Szymanowicz; © REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
Britain's Home Secretary has revealed
he has signed a request for the extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian
Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today
program, Sajid Javid said that he signed and certified the papers on Wednesday,
with the order going before the UK courts on Friday.
He’s rightly behind bars.
There’s an extradition request from the US that is before the courts tomorrow
but yesterday I signed the extradition order and certified it and that will be
going in front of the courts tomorrow.
The US justice department has filed
17 new charges against the Australian journalist. In May, he was additionally
charged with one count of conspiring with Chelsea Manning, the former
intelligence analyst and whistleblower, to gain access to the US Pentagon
network.
Assange is currently serving a prison
sentence in the UK for jumping bail. The 47 year-old was too ill to appear last
month at the latest hearing at Westminster magistrates court in relation to the
US request.
The hearing has been rescheduled for
Friday and, depending on the state of his health, may take place at Belmarsh
prison, where he is being held.
The journalist spent over six years
living under asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, out of fear Britain
would hand him over to the US. He was forcibly dragged out of the building in
April after the South American nation decided to evict him.
His arrest and subsequent
imprisonment prompted much public outcry. Human rights activist Peter Tatchell
believes a near maximum sentence of “50 weeks is excessive and
disproportionate.”
The WikiLeaks co-founder’s health has
been of particular concern to his supporters. His lawyer, Per Samuelson, told
reporters after visiting Belmarsh at the end of May that “Assange’s health
situation... was such that it was not possible to conduct a normal conversation
with him.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture,
Nils Melzer, who visited Assange in Belmarsh, claimed that he showed clear
signs of degrading and inhumane treatment, which only added to his
deteriorating health.
The publishing of the Iraq War
footage showing a US Apache helicopter shooting dead 12 people, including two
Reuters staff, is one of the most significant and talked-about exposures made
by his WikiLeaks organization.
Just one week before Hillary Clinton
became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2016, WikiLeaks released
thousands of emails showing that top party figures had collaborated to ensure
that Senator Bernie Sanders did not win the nomination. The leaks forced DNC
chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to resign.
ALSO ON
RT.COMJournalists silent on Assange’s plight are complicit in his torture and
imprisonment
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