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MEXICO – Mexico offered political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shortly after the US extradition request was rejected by a judge in the UK.
“It is a triumph of justice. I’m glad England acted this way because Assange is a journalist and deserves a chance, ”President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said when making his offer to Assange.
On Monday, a British judge ruled that Assange, who faces 17 espionage charges, would risk suicide if placed in solitary confinement in a US prison due to his precarious mental health. The Justice Department said it will continue to seek his extradition to the United States.
British judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected arguments by Assange’s lawyers that the charges were an attack on press freedom and were politically motivated, accepting the United States’ assertion that his alleged activities did not count as journalism. Instead, the judge based his decision on medical evidence regarding his mental health: “The overall impression is of a depressed and at times desperate man who is genuinely afraid of his future. I find that Mr. Assange’s mental state is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America, ”she concluded.
Baraitser referred to the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in prison in 2019 as proof that it would not be possible to prevent suicide in American prisons. She also noted that Assange’s diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder could lead him to commit suicide with “steadfast determination.”
In the United States, prosecutors have charged Assange with 17 counts of violating espionage law and one count of computer abuse for WikiLeak’s publication of military and diplomatic documents, punishable by a sentence of up to 175 years in prison.
Assange’s legal team has announced that they will be launching a new appeal for his release from UK prison, citing high rates of COVID-19 in the high-security prison where he is being held.
In 2010, Swedish authorities demanded Assange’s arrest after two women filed charges against him for rape and sexual assault. The UK arrested Assange, but he waived his bail in 2012, seeking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy. In April 2019, Ecuador expelled him from the embassy, and he was arrested and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for waiving bail. In November, Sweden dropped the charges against Assange, saying the evidence it found was not strong enough to support an indictment.
Lopez Obrador’s announcement was seen by many in Mexico as ironic. His government has been criticized for its harsh treatment of asylum seekers from neighboring Central American countries, torn by crime, as well as for the president’s frequent and hostile tirades against journalists, which included comparing them to criminal gangs. Mexico is the most dangerous country for journalists in the Western Hemisphere, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
His offer to Assange is likely to anger the new US administration, especially after Lopez Obrador’s initial refusal to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden on his victory. In his possible letter to Biden, Lopez Obrador issued an implicit warning against any involvement in Mexico’s internal affairs.
If Assange, 49, manages to accept Mexico’s offer of political asylum, he will land in a country struggling to control the pandemic. Mexico has the fourth-highest death rate in the world, and its capital is currently on lockdown as its hospitals, with virtually no beds, brace for an increase in patient numbers after the holidays.
But Assange will find an unlikely ally in the president.
“We’re going to give him protection,” Lopez Obrador promised.
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