The former Ecuadorian president, who hosted a show on RT Spanish, said those who follow Julian Assange want to discourage others from exposing war crimes. The indictment is a total hoax, he claimed.
“It’s such a paradox that on International Human Rights Day a huge attack was made on a journalist’s human rights – for the sin of telling the truth,” Rafael Correa, who ruled Ecuador between 2007 and 2017, said in an interview. to RT Spanish, where he hosted a talk show.
A British Supreme Court has ruled on Friday that WikiLeak’s co-founder could be extradited to the United States, where he is wanted on suspicion of espionage.
Under Assange’s helm, WikiLeaks published scores of classified material about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including an outrageous video of US helicopters shooting down civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
“War criminals persecute those who condemned them,” Correa said, dismissing the case against Assange as “total hypocrisy.”
Correa said the prosecution’s aim was to intimidate others so that “no one else dares to condemn the secrets of great powers.” He argued that war crimes should not be treated as protected state secrets. “The whole world must know about them. Such crimes must be punished.”
In 2012, for fear of extradition to Sweden due to a rape investigation that was later dropped, Assange jumped on bail and hid inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He was granted asylum by the Correa government, but that decision was overturned almost seven years later under Correa’s successor Lenin Moreno. In 2019, Assange was accused of violating asylum conditions and was thrown out of the embassy. He was immediately arrested by British police and detained.
A lower British court has ruled not to extradite Assange earlier this year, citing concerns about his mental health. The United States appealed the verdict and won after promising not to keep Assange in solitary confinement and otherwise reduce the risk of him committing suicide behind bars.
Assange’s legal team and supporters promised to appeal the verdict.
(RT.com)