PResident Joe Biden told reporters on Wednesday that he was considering a request made by the Australian government to withdraw the extradition case against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is currently imprisoned in the United Kingdom.
“We are considering it,” Biden said after a reporter asked him where he stood on Australia’s request.
“Mr. Assange has already paid a significant price and enough is enough. There is nothing to be gained from the continued incarceration of Mr. Assange,” said Anthony Albanese, the current Prime Minister of Australia. Sky News on Thursday. Assange is an Australian citizen and, in February, the Australian parliament passed a motion asking for his release.
Assange was arrested in London on April 11, 2019 – exactly five years ago on Thursday – for failing to appear in court after his Ecuadorian asylum status was revoked. The US government has since requested that the British government extradite him to the US, where he would face charges under the Espionage Act. Assange helped obtain and publish thousands of classified US military documents related to the Iraq war, which the US says endangered its national defense. Assange’s defense argues that the publication of the documents helped serve the public interest because it exposed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan that were previously unknown to the American public.
In 2021, a Justice Department spokesperson during the Biden administration said it would continue to seek extradition, according to Reuters.
If Biden carries out Australia’s request, it would indicate a dramatic policy reversal, says Professor Charlie Beckett, professor of media studies at the London School of Economics and author of the book WikiLeaks: News in the age of networks.
“Even considering him, it’s an absolutely fascinating change of tone,” says Beckett. When Assange was arrested, many prominent Democrats initially pushed for his extradition. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Assange should “answer for what he did”, while Chuck Schumer, the current Senate majority leader, tweeted that he hoped Assange “will soon be held accountable for his meddling in our elections in the name of Putin and the Russian government.”
However, increasingly, progressive groups have been pushing for Assange’s release, saying that prosecuting the man would be a violation of his freedom of expression as a journalist. “Mr. Assange’s indictment threatens press freedom because much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists routinely engage in – and must engage in to do the work the public needs them to do,” Human Rights Watch wrote in his coalition letter to the Department of Justice.
See more information: ‘Historic for all the wrong reasons.’ Press freedom defenders condemn Julian Assange’s extradition decision
So far, Assange has not been extradited because he has appealed his case numerous times to the British courts. Last month, a British court ruled that the US cannot extradite Assange unless it can guarantee that Assange will receive First Amendment rights, will not be harmed because of his nationality, and will not receive the death penalty. If the US can prove that it can meet these three criteria, then Assange could be extradited this year.
See more information: Here’s what’s next if the UK approves Julian Assange’s extradition to the US
Assange spent approximately 12 years in some form of confinement, seven in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted asylum, and another five in a London prison trying to avoid extradition through appeal cases. Her co-conspirator, Chelsea Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst, spent seven years in an American prison but was released in May 2017 after her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama.
“The irony is that it’s possible … that if he had come to the U.S. and been convicted, he would have already served time and could have been released by now,” says Gary Ross, director of intelligence studies at Texas A&M. University. “But because of his self-isolation and his fight against extradition, he is still at the point where he will have to go back and face the charges.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
