Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has called on US President to drop charges against WikiLeaks founder
The President of Mexico has revealed the contents of a personal letter he forwarded to his US counterpart during their meeting last week. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called on Joe Biden to intervene and dismiss the charges against WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, who faces the prospect of serving 175 years in a US prison.
“I left a letter to the President about Assange, in which I stated that he had not committed any serious crime, caused anyone’s death, violated any human rights and that exercising his freedom and arresting him would constitute a permanent insult to Freedom of Expression.” Lopez Obrador said this at a press conference on Monday.
“And I explained [Biden] that Mexico offers protection and asylum to Julian Assange, added the Mexican president.
This is not the first time the Mexican leader has appealed on behalf of Assange. Earlier this month, he said that if Washington sentenced Assange, it would confirm that the world-famous monument in New York harbor “is no longer a symbol of freedom.”
“If they take him to the United States and he is sentenced to maximum punishment and to die in prison, we must launch a campaign to tear down the Statue of Liberty.” Lopez Obrador declared on July 4, when the United States celebrated its Independence Day.
Assange has actually been imprisoned since 2012, when he applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faced accusations of sexual abuse which have since been written off. Quito revoked Assange’s asylum status in 2019, and British police transferred him from the embassy to the maximum guarded Belmarsh prison, where he has remained ever since, and his health and mental condition are said to have deteriorated.
READ MORE: Julian Assange appeals extradition to US – WSJ
The WikiLeaks publisher’s lawyers filed new appeals earlier this month to contest his extradition to the United States. He faces 18 cases of conspiracy to obtain and release classified material, and violations of espionage laws stemming from the receipt of top-secret documents from a military analyst in 2010. .
Source: sn.dk