Assange ‘pleased’ Biden to consider dropping charges

Julian Assange is “pleased” US president Joe Biden is considering dropping his prosecution and “hopes he’ll do the right thing”, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief has said.

Kristinn Hrafnsson spoke to the Australian activist yesterday on the fifth anniversary of his imprisonment at Belmarsh Prison in south-east London.

Mr Biden responded “we’re considering it” when asked about a request from the Australian government to call off the pursuit of Assange.

Assange was taken to Belmarsh Prison five years ago, after being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy, where he stayed while fighting against being taken to the US.

The WikiLeaks founder faces prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose secret military and diplomatic files in 2010 relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

His wife Stella Assange called on Mr Biden to drop the “Trump era” prosecution, citing a dangerous precedent for freedom of the press.

Mr Hrafnsson, who has visited Assange regularly in the past five years, told PA that Mr Biden’s declaration was a “ray of hope” for the WikiLeaks founder.

“Of course, it is a ray of hope that we discussed and Julian is pleased with that positive sign, which is probably a result of the tremendously growing support by governments and organisations, especially the Australian government,” Mr Hrafnsson said.

“We agreed and I agree with him that we need to know more. There needs to be more information and more discussion about what this entails.”

Mr Hrafnsson said Assange is “not in a good mental state”, having suffered both “mentally and physically” after exposing the “truth”.

“Nobody would be in a good state after having spent five years inside with this very uncertain outcome about his life future, constantly angry,” he said.

“And this endless and tiresome process in the courtrooms here in London which are borderline becoming farcical.

“He is resilient. And what keeps him alive is his family and the tremendous support on the outside.

“[Also] with the inner feeling that he did nothing wrong, he did, on the contrary, everything right.

“History will prove that and people are beginning to understand that you cannot criminalise journalism as we are seeing being done here. I see this as a good moment for Biden to do the right thing.”