After a British judge blocked WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States to face espionage charges, Mexico’s president reiterated on Monday its readiness to offer him political asylum.
Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he’ll ask the foreign minister to carry out the relevant procedures to request that the UK government releases Assange, and that Mexico offers him political asylum.
Stressing that Assange is a journalist and that he deserves a chance, the leftist leader welcomed as a “triumph of justice” the British court’s rejection of the US request to extradite the Australian publisher due to the risk of suicide.
Obrador has sought a pardon for Assange under the Trump administration and was ignored, but he first floated an asylum proposal last year after the UK High Court of Justice ruled on December 10 that Assange could be extradited to the US on a series of espionage charges linked to his publication of classified material.
Mexico’s President Obrador described his efforts to secure the anti-secrecy activist’s freedom as a sign of solidarity and fraternity, claiming that Assange would not interfere in other nations’ affairs and would pose no threat should he be permitted refuge in Mexico.
Assange’s case has now been remitted back to Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where his legal team plans to appeal the ruling.
WikiLeaks co-founder has been charged by the US Department of Justice with 18 counts related to 2010 publishing of 500,000 US military and diplomatic secret files, some of which revealed potential war crimes by American forces during campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
DOJ argues that Assange, among other things, has violated the World War I-era Espionage Act and has put lives of US personnel at risk. If convicted, Assange faces up to 175 years in jail in the US.
Supporters of Assange’s work, on the other hand, refuse those claims arguing that Assange’s deeds are no different from the investigative journalism major media outlets implement, including the use of leaked classified documents.
However, the former Mexican ambassador to the US, Arturo Sarukhan, has warned that the Obrador’s asylum offer risked causing tensions with the Biden administration that the Mexican president has already got off to a rocky start by being one of the last high-profile leaders to congratulate Biden on his victory.
According to Sarukhan, Obrador is also ignoring the fact that WikiLeaks published 20,000 hacked emails from the Democrat Hillary Clinton’s election campaign team in 2016.
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