Assange’s family calls on Berlin to take up his cause

Julian Assange’s father and brother on Monday called on the German government to ask US President Joe Biden to drop the case against the WikiLeaks founder.

“The German government should express to President Biden their concern about this case and they should request that it should be dropped,” said Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s brother, at a press briefing in Berlin.

The British government on Friday approved Assange’s extradition to the United States, to the dismay of his supporters and free press campaigners.

He is wanted to face trial for violating the US Espionage Act by publishing military and diplomatic files in 2010 and could face up to 175 years in jail if found guilty.

The Assange case has become a cause celebre for media freedom and his supporters accuse Washington of trying to muzzle reporting of legitimate security concerns.

“I’ve always felt that acquiescence, doing nothing, is complicity. Being invisible in the case of Julian Assange is complicity,” said Assange’s father John Shipton.

The pair called on Germany to use its influence in Nato and the upcoming Group of Seven leaders’ meeting in Bavaria to push Assange’s cause.

“When you’re attempting to speak to Russia about press freedom [but also] endorsing the extradition of a journalist and publisher for doing their job, you lose standing in these situations,” Gabriel Shipton added.

Assange’s brother and father were due to attend a meeting in the German foreign ministry later on Monday and yesterday meet members of a parliamentary group formed in support of Assange.

But government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Monday said he could not see how Germany would intervene on a political level in legal proceedings in another country.

“This is a legal process that is already in motion, so I would be a little wary of political intervention,” he said, adding

that Germany would continue to keep a close eye on the case.

Assange has been held on remand at a top-security jail in London since 2019 for jumping bail in a case accusing him of sexual assault in Sweden.

He previously spent seven years at Ecuador’s embassy in London to avoid being removed to Sweden but was arrested when the government changed in Quito.