Call for the release of WikiLeaks founder
MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s House of Representatives has ramped up pressure on the United States and Britain to end the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by passing a motion calling for the Australian citizen to be allowed to return to his home country.
Independent lawmaker Andrew Wilkie moved the motion on Wednesday one week ahead of Britain’s High Court of Justice hearing Assange’s appeal against extradition to the United States on espionage charges.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among the 86 lawmakers who voted for the motion that called on the United States and Britain to bring the “matter to a close so that Mr Assange can return home to his family in Australia.”
The motion was opposed by 42 lawmakers including most of the main opposition party that unsuccessfully proposed amendments.
Leaders of both the government and the opposition have publicly stated that the United States’ pursuit of the 52-year-old had dragged on for too long.
Assange has been in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was arrested in 2019 for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that, he spent seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Sweden dropped the rape investigation in 2019 because so much time had elapsed.
Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton on Thursday welcomed the lawmakers’ vote, adding that his notorious sibling could potentially be extradited to the United States next week.
“That means all the ties to his family, his lifeline that are keeping him alive inside that prison will be cut off and he’ll be lost into a horrific prison system in the United States,” Mr Shipton told reporters at Parliament House.
“This show of support from the Parliament is at a crucial time and now gives the government a real mandate to advocate very, very strongly for a political solution to bring Julian Assange home,” Shipton added.
Wilkie, who authored the motion, argues the extradition should be dropped.