Status: 03.07.2021 3:05 p.m.
Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks – and has been hunted by the US judiciary ever since. After seven years of asylum in the embassy, he has been in prison since 2019. Today he is 50 years old. And now?
From Christoph Prössl,
ARD studio London
Julian Assange has been in the maximum security prison Belmarsh in south-east London since April 2019. According to his lawyers in solitary confinement, with only one hour of free time per day – because of the corona pandemic. In mid-June he was allowed to receive visitors: his fiancée Stella Morris and the two children, who were not allowed to visit for eight months. His health is not good, say his lawyers.
That is also the reason why the British judiciary has refused extradition to the USA. Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange’s attorneys, says she is very concerned about the ongoing detention – and she also believes the detention is disproportionate.
How things will go on for Assange is currently open. Assange faces 175 years imprisonment in the United States. Lawyer Robinson criticizes the judiciary’s decision of January 2021 – even if Assange is not extradited for the time being. Because: The British judge recognized all points of the US prosecutor’s office. For her, this means in consequence: “Journalists who published true information about the USA must expect to be extradited to the USA,” she said.
On the run since 2010
Assange hasn’t been a free man in years. In April 2010, the WikiLeaks platform he founded published a video of the US armed forces. It shows a helicopter attacking a group of Iraqis in Baghdad in July 2007. The men are civilians, there are children. Numerous people die.
WikiLeaks later published US military documents on the war in Afghanistan. Assange argues that these papers demonstrate human rights violations. The US is pursuing Assange. The Swedish judiciary opened an investigation against him – for sexual assault and rape. In 2012 he fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Julian Assange in August 2012 on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Image: dpa
Seven years under total surveillance
In 2016, WikiLeaks published emails from Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The FBI accuses Assange that WikiLeaks received the papers from the Russian secret service. Clinton’s competitor Donald Trump won the election. In 2017, the Swedish judiciary closed the investigation. Assange said on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy:
This is an important victory for me and for human rights. For seven years I have been locked up without a sentence, in prison, under house arrest, and for five years here at the embassy without any sunlight.
Assange lives in a small room, the windows are masked with cardboard. It is constantly monitored – initially only via video, later it is also monitored permanently. Photos and video sequences are published in the press showing a neglected room and how he tries to skateboard in a room or walks up and down for a long time.
His fiancée Stella Morris reported in a BBC interview how stressful she perceived the surveillance: When she became pregnant, she told him about this during a visit on a slip of paper that she pushed over to him.
Stella Morris, the fiancée of Julian Assange, at a rally.
Image: AFP
Wedding in Belmarsh Prison?
In April 2019, Guillermo Lasso, the new President of Ecuador, announced that Assange could no longer accept asylum. As a result, the British police arrested Assange. He is taken to Belmarsh Detention Center, where he has been incarcerated ever since.
Morris recently announced that they would both get married. How this should work in prison and in view of the corona restrictions is still open. Assange will have to stay in jail until extradition negotiations have taken place because the United States appealed against the British ruling. Assange’s supporters are now hoping that the new US President Joe Biden will find a way out for him.