As Wikileaks founder Julian Assange faces being confined to a concrete cell no larger than a 12ft by 7ft coffin in America’s supermax prison for the rest of his life, those close to him fear he may not survive should his High Court Appeal against his extradition fail.
The hearing at the British High Court in London concluded Wednesday, with the court expected to decide the Wikileaks chief’s fate next month.
According to lawyer Ed Fitzgerald, Assange, 52, could not attend his opening legal fight as he was too ill. While the nature of Assange’s illness was not disclosed, it was widely reported that the Wikileaks founder suffered a stroke in 2021, as confirmed by his wife, Stella Morris.
Fitzgerald said his client “will suffer a flagrant denial of justice” if he is extradited to the U.S., adding, “He is being prosecuted for engaging in the ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information, information that is both true and of obvious and important public interest.”
Fitzgerald also noted that there had been no consideration given to the “CIA plot” to kidnap or murder Assange while he was held in the embassy.
“There are great grounds for fearing what will be done to him given the revelations of surveillance in the embassy and plots to kill him,” he said.
According to an in-depth report from Yahoo News, the CIA had developed plans to assassinate Assange.
Via the report:
Some senior officials inside the CIA discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels,” a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”
The conversations were part of an unprecedented CIA campaign directed against WikiLeaks and its founder. The agency’s multipronged plans also included extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices.
In another report from Real News Network, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who exposed the CIA’s use of torture, said Assange is already being slowly assassinated.
“At times it seems as though the process is for punishment and they’re quite happy that they’ve got Julian in a maximum security prison in dreadful positions and they’re slowly killing him in effect. And so they are in no hurry. And at times it seemed as though they were deliberately doing things as slowly as possible,” he said.
Assange’s wife, Stella, said, “We don’t know what to expect, but you’re here because the world is watching.”
“They just cannot get away with this. Julian needs his freedom, and we all need the truth,” adding that, “if he’s extradited, he will die.”
Should Assange lose his appeal, his only option would be to go to the European Court of Human Rights. However, those close to Assange fear he could be flown to the U.S. before that happens, as the British government would have already signed the extradition order.
America wants the Wikileaks Chief on trial on 17 charges under the Espionage Act and one of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion after publishing and releasing thousands of top secret military documents exposing how the Iraq war was based on a lie.
If Assange is convicted, he faces 175 years in prison, which his wife describes as a “living death sentence.”
“It would be catastrophic,” she said yesterday at the High Court in London.
“Our children are British, they are in school, their stability is here. Our contact with Julian would be severely restricted, potentially to one 15-minute call once a month,” she continued.
“He would face barbaric conditions even before trial. He will not survive extradition to this kind of torture.”
In 2021, Assanage’s mother tweeted:
“My son Julian #Assange is being slowly, cruelly & unlawfully assassinated by the # U.S. and # U.K. Governments, for multi-award winning journalism revealing war crimes & corruption!”
Tragically, his mother has been proven right. Not only would it be messy and bad optics for the deep state to assassinate Assange outright, but it would also give his work more legitimacy. They definitely don’t want that.
Seeing Assange being slowly and cruely tortured to death while waiting for extradition or in prison is their best option.
If we lose Assange, it will be the final nail in the coffin for journalism.
