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Julian Assange

Burying The CIA’s Assange Secrets

February 19, 2025 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
A United States judge dismissed a lawsuit pursued by four American attorneys and journalists, who alleged that the CIA and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo spied on them while they were visiting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Ecuador’s London embassy. “The subject matter of this litigation,” Judge John Koeltl determined, “is subject to the state secrets privilege in its entirety.” Any answer to the allegations against the CIA would “reveal privileged information.” Few publications followed this case as closely as The Dissenter. It unfolded at the same time that the U.S. government pursued the extradition of Assange, making any outcome potentially significant.

Judge Orders CPS To Come Clean On Deleted Assange Documents

January 11, 2025 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , , ,
Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi has been waging a legal battle for seven years against the Crown Prosecution Service to discover the truth about a CPS claim that it deleted a number of documents Maurizi has sought in a Freedom of Information request about the case of Julian Assange.   Now a judge on the London First-tier Tribunal has ruled that the CPS must explain to Maurizi what it knows about when, why and how the documents were allegedly destroyed. The Jan. 2 ruling was first reported by Maurizi’s newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano on Friday.

United Kingdom Snubs Council Of Europe Over Assange Inquiry

October 26, 2024 Mark Curtis, Consortium News. , , , , , ,
Britain’s Home Office is making a “grave mistake” by ignoring a call from the Council of Europe to review its treatment of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder’s wife has warned. The council’s parliamentary assembly, of which the U.K. is a member, passed a resolution earlier this month designating Assange as a “political prisoner”. Assange endured five years in Belmarsh maximum security prison in London before being released in June, and flying to his native Australia. The U.K. government had incarcerated him while the U.S. pursued extradition proceedings in the British courts. His treatment has outraged the Council of Europe.

Fighting For More Evidence Of Assange’s Political Prosecution

October 24, 2024 Joe Lauria and Mohamed Elmaazi, Consortium News. , , , , ,
A tribunal in Britain is set to decide whether to order the government’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to prove it deleted emails that may have covered up more evidence of a politically motivated prosecution of Julian Assange. The three judges heard arguments on Sept. 24 in the nearly decade-long freedom of information saga regarding the emails that top British prosecutors say were deleted. They involved an exchange with Sweden during a Swedish prosecutor’s attempt, beginning in 2010, to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher from Britain. Assange was wanted in Sweden for questioning during a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual assault, which was dropped three times, definitively in 2017.

Assange Receives A Measure Of Justice From The Council Of Europe

October 5, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , ,
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Europe’s foremost human rights body, overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on October 2 formally declaring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a political prisoner. The Council of Europe, which represents 64 nations, expressed deep concern at the harsh treatment suffered by Assange, which has had a “chilling effect” on journalists and whistleblowers around the world. In the resolution, PACE notes that many of the leaked files WikiLeaks published “provide credible evidence of war crimes, human rights abuses, and government misconduct.” The revelations also “confirmed the existence of secret prisons, kidnappings and illegal transfers of prisoners by the United States on European soil.”

Journalist Reaction Panel To Assange Testimony

October 2, 2024 Defending Rights & Dissent. , , , ,
On October 1, 2024, Julian Assange broke his silence. The WikiLeaks founder testified before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) about the chilling effect his detention and conviction has had on human rights. When Assange was detained,The Committee previously found he met PACE’s definition of a political prisoner. Assange’s testimony marked his first substantive, public comments in over half a decade. Other than his remarks at his sentencing hearing, the public has largely not heard from Assange since his 2019 arrest.

Assange’s Testimony In Strasbourg

October 1, 2024 Julian Assange, Consortium News. , , , , ,
Julian Assange appeared before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, France on Tuesday morning. He testified to PACE members, passed a resolution last month dealing with Assange’s treatment by both the U.S. and British governments; the need for “urgent” reform of the U.S. Espionage Act; and for the U.S. to cooperate in the Spanish legal case about the U.S. surveillance of Assange. These are highlights of the resolution: “The Assembly considers that the disproportionately severe charges brought against Julian Assange by the United States of America, as well as heavy penalties foreseen under the Espionage Act for engaging in acts of journalism fall within the criteria set out in Resolution 1900 (2012) “The definition of political prisoner”.

Assange To Testify At Council Of Europe

September 25, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who was released from prison in June, will address the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France on Oct. 1 after he was granted  Status as a Political Prisoner by a rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), WikiLeaks said today. It will be the first time Assange will speak in public since his hearing in U.S. federal court on the North Mariana islands in June, at which he was granted his release after a plea deal. Assange will give evidence before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which will meet from 8.30am to 10am at the Palace of Europe, WikiLeaks said.

FBI Sued For Withholding Files On Assange And WikiLeaks

September 13, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
The civil liberties organization Defending Rights and Dissent sued the FBI and United States Justice Department for withholding records on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. “For nearly a decade and a half, we’ve been trying to get at the truth about the U.S. government’s war on WikiLeaks,” declared Chip Gibbons, the policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent. Gibbons added, “With the legal persecution of Julian Assange finally over, the FBI must come clean to the American people.” On June 25, 2024, U.S. government attorneys submitted a plea agreement [PDF] in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands after Assange agreed to plead guilty to one conspiracy charge under the U.S. Espionage Act.

US Won’t Comply With Investigation Into CIA Operation Targeting Assange

August 1, 2024 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
The United States government notified a Spanish criminal court that it still will not comply with requests from Spanish investigators, who are trying to uncover details about an espionage operation that targeted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. As the Spanish newspaper El País reported on July 29, Courtney E. Lee, a trial attorney in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, claimed that providing information to Spain’s national high court would “interfere” with “ongoing U.S. litigation.” Assange was the target of an unprecedented political prosecution that was globally condemned as a threat to press freedom. The case ended in a plea deal in late June after U.S. prosecutors feared that Assange might win his appeal against extradition.

Assange’s Case Shows Why Reforming The Espionage Act Is Imperative

July 12, 2024 Chip Gibbons, The Nation. , , , , ,
On June 25, 2024, the 14-year persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange came to an end. As part of a plea deal, the journalist pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act. In exchange, he received time served for the five years he spent in a British maximum-security prison while fighting his extradition. Although Assange walked out of the courthouse a free man, his freedom came after paying an extraordinary harsh price. Officially, Assange’s crime was “conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information.” According to the plea deal, Assange helped to set up WikiLeaks, which announced that it would publish “classified, censored, or otherwise restricted information of political, diplomatic, or ethical significance.”

Julian Assange Freed By The Prospect Of Justice

July 7, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The sudden announcement that Julian Assange would be freed after a plea agreement came as a great and very welcome surprise. Assange and the Wikileaks team were targets of United States persecution and prosecution by three different presidential administrations because they revealed secrets that the state wanted to keep hidden. Wikileaks revealed war crimes committed during the George W. Bush administration in their Iraq War Logs and Afghanistan War Logs. Private Chelsea Manning leaked the Collateral Murder video, which shows the deaths of civilians, including two Reuters reporters, as they were gunned down by a U.S. army helicopter crew in 2007.

The Media Kept Assange Behind Bars

July 1, 2024 Jonathan Cook, Consortium News. , , ,
It is only right that we all take a moment to celebrate the victory of Julian Assange’s release from 14 years of detention, in varying forms, to be united, finally, with his wife and children — two boys who have been denied the chance to ever properly know their father. His last five years were spent in Belmarsh high-security prison as the United States sought to extradite him to face a 175-year jail sentence for publishing details of its state crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. For seven years before that he was confined to a small room in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after Quito awarded him political asylum to evade the clutches of a law-breaking U.S. empire determined to make an example of him.

Julian Assange Is Finally Free; Let’s Not Forget The War Crimes He Exposed

June 29, 2024 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , ,
After a 14-year struggle, including five years spent in Belmarsh, a maximum-security prison in London, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is finally free. Under the terms of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defense under the Espionage Act. Assange was facing 175 years in prison for 18 charges in the indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration. The Justice Department agreed to the plea bargain a little over a month after the High Court of England and Wales ruled that Assange would be allowed to appeal an extradition order.

Assange Agreed To Destroy Unpublished Classified Material

June 28, 2024 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
The 23-page plea deal between Julian Assange and the United States government that freed Assange this week contains a provision that he agree to return or destroy all unpublished  U.S. material still in WikiLeaks‘ possession. The agreement says on Page 29: “Before his plea is entered in Court, the Defendant shall take all action within his control to cause the return to the United States or the destruction of any such unpublished information in his possession, custody, or control, or that of WikiLeaks or any affiliate of WikiLeaks. The Defendant further agrees that, if the forgoing obligation requires him to instruct the editor(s) of WikiLeaks to destroy any such information or otherwise cause it to be destroyed, he shall provide the United States (or cause to be provided to the United States) a sworn affidavit confirming the instruction he provided and that, he will, in good faith, seek to facilitate compliance with that instruction prior to sentencing.”
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