The decision of Sweden to discontinue the investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after nine years of brutal scrutiny over sexual assault charges proves that the entire campaign was a state-orchestrated attempt of a frame-up, Chris Marsden, the National Secretary of the UK Socialist Equality Party, told Sputnik on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th November, 2019) The decision of Sweden to discontinue the investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after nine years of brutal scrutiny over sexual assault charges proves that the entire campaign was a state-orchestrated attempt of a frame-up, Chris Marsden, the National Secretary of the UK Socialist Equality Party, told Sputnik on Tuesday.Sweden was mulling charges against Assange since 2010. The whistleblower number one simultaneously faced criminal charges from two other countries - the United Kingdom and the United States. At the moment, Assange is serving a 50-week sentence in London for breaching bail and taking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, which cast him out in April. Earlier in the day, WikiLeaks announced that Sweden discontinued its investigation against Assange over a rape allegation.
"It is very striking that Nils Melzer [UN Special Rapporteur on Torture] has just issued a point by point rebuttal to the entire nine year campaign by the Swedish state exposing all of its lies and contradictions and making clear the political purpose to slander Assange, to undermine his international reputation and justify placing him in the legal system, which after all is what forced Assange to seek asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 as he feared, quite correctly, extradition to the United States," Marsden said.
The lawmaker called the news a "devastating blow to the frame-up of Julian Assange," which has never had any substance to it.
"Does it help the pro-Assange cause? Yes it does, because it proves to all those who defended Julian Assange that this was clearly a state orchestrated frame-up. No one in good conscious can any longer deny this," Marsden continued. He further opined that those who insisted that Assange stand before the Swedish prosecution, while knowing very well that Sweden would not be his final destination, owe him an apology.
"It is now absolutely clear that the only real issue that was ever involved in this case was an attempt by Washington and its allies in Britain, Australia, Ecuador and Sweden to silence Assange for his exposure of war crimes, mass surveillance and the attacks on the democratic rights of people all over the world," the lawmaker said.
Marsden expressed firm doubts that Sweden's lead could prompt the United States give up on seeking Assange's extradition.
In May, the UN special rapporteur on torture criticized the UK, US, Sweden and Ecuador for "ganging up" on a single investigative journalist and leading "a sustained and concerted" campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Assange which began in 2010, when WikiLeaks started publishing evidence of war crimes and torture committed by the US.
Washington still seeks Assange's extradition which is up to the UK court to decide upon. If extradited, he faces an up to 175-year sentence over espionage.
