French NGO Supporting Assange Poised To Seek His Release From UK Prison

GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th January, 2021) French NGO WikiJustice for Assange is determined to pursue the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from prison, the organization's founder, Veronique Pidancet-Barriere, told Sputnik.

On Monday, UK district judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled not to extradite Assange to the United States, citing health reasons and suicide risks, but did not release him from custody either. Currently in the Belmarsh high-security prison, Assange could face a 175-year prison sentence if extradited. US prosecutors were given two weeks to appeal the verdict.

"We will continue the procedure as long as the citizen known as Julian Assange is not free, has not declared publicly, himself, his birth identity, has not freely expressed himself and has not recognized the children that Stella Moritz, aka Stella or Sara Gonzalez Devant, aka Stella Smith Robinson, claims to be his," Pidancet-Barriere said.

The activist said Assange himself had reached out to the NGO, asking to "light up the night until victory."

"And we are going to do it, we are going to get the truth out in the open, the whole truth. Our investigation continues. Our procedures too," Pidancet-Barriere said.

According to the NGO founder, the trial in the United Kingdom was conducted with many politically-motivated biases and violations of legitimacy of fair trial and must, therefore, be considered void.

In 2010, WikiLeaks released what is believed to be the largest leak of classified information in history, consisting of US diplomatic cables and documents exposing the atrocities committed by US troops during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States accused Assange of obtaining the documents by conspiring with former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack a government computer.

The UK police arrested Assange in April 2019. The journalist was sentenced to 50 weeks behind bars for breaching bail back in 2012. People who visited him in jail described the conditions as extremely strict to the point of being harmful for his physical and psychological health.