SYDNEY – There is “nothing to be served” by keeping WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in jail, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said today, reported dpa.
Assange, an Australian citizen, has been in London’s Belmarsh prison since being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy four years ago. He is fighting a long-running legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States.
The US has charged Assange, 51, for conspiring with former US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak a massive trove of classified material in 2010.
Albanese called Assange’s continued incarceration “frustrating”.
“I think that the Assange case needs to be looked at in terms of what occurred, what the allegations are, and whether the time effectively that has been served already is in excess of what would be reasonable if it were proven that this had occurred,” he told Australian broadcaster ABC.
“But when Australians look at the circumstances, look at the fact that the person who released the information (Chelsea Manning) is walking freely now having served some time in incarceration... then they’ll see that there’s a disconnect there.”
Albanese said that while he had “issues” with what Assange did, “enough is enough”.
“There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.”
British police arrested Assange in April 2019 at the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had taken refuge for seven years, for failing to surrender to an earlier warrant linked to Swedish charges that were eventually dropped.
The police swooped in after Quito revoked Assange’s asylum status. – Bernama, May 5, 2023
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