The United States Department of Justice is studying the possibility of lowering the charges against Julian Assange in exchange for the Wilileaks co-founder admitting his guilt, as published in the newspaper The Wall Street Journal, which does not specify the sources of the information beyond defining them as “people familiar with the matter.” The purpose of such a pact would be to avoid the extradition of the exhackerwho has been in the Belmarsh maximum security prison, on the outskirts of London, for five years.
The Administration of President Joe Biden maintains a formal accusation against Assange promoted by his predecessor, Donald Trump, for 17 crimes against the Espionage Act and one of intrusion into a computer. The Australian editor would face 175 years in prison for the leak of more than 250,000 classified documents from the US State Department in November 2010. EL PAÍS was one of the media that participated in that concerted effort to publish these papers.
The lawyer representing the publisher in the United States, Barry J. Pollack, has responded to the newspaper's information with a brief statement: “It is not appropriate for Mr. Assange's lawyers to comment while his case is still pending before the Superior Court of Justice. [de Inglaterra y Gales]beyond stating that we have not received any indication that the Department of Justice [estadounidense] intend to resolve the case. “The United States remains as firm as ever in its efforts to achieve extradition based on 18 crimes, and to force him to face 175 years in prison.”
The warning that “it is not appropriate” to make any comment puts a precautionary cushion on the subsequent denial of any agreement, as it is a possible extrajudicial negotiation in which nothing would be agreed until everything was definitively agreed.
Two British judges, Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson, must decide in the coming weeks whether to grant the Wikileaks co-founder a last opportunity to legally argue their case before British justice, or if they give the definitive green light to his extradition to the United States. The hearing to resolve this prior request for the possibility of appeal presented by Assange's legal team, held over two sessions in mid-February, once again raised global attention to the editor's situation, and generated an extensive campaign in defense of press freedom. The pressure in favor of the prisoner's release is not so much directed towards the judges who have been passing a hot iron between them, but towards the American and British governments, which have in their hands the possibility of stopping the persecution.
If the Justice Department and Assange's lawyers reached the agreement suggested by The Wall Street Journalthe hypothetical admission by the prisoner of less serious crimes than those contemplated in the current accusation would have the consequence of his immediate release, as the five years he has been locked up in Belmarsh prison will be counted as time already served.
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In an interview with EL PAÍS at the end of the hearing in London, the wife of the Wikileaks co-founder, Stella Assange, explained that the prisoner's health is very deteriorated, and expressed her fear that he could end up dying if he was handed over to the United States. because the Prosecutor's Office decided, already in the United States, to request the death penalty against him, or because Assange himself decided to take his own life.
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