Valentina Shvartsman - Team of lawyers working on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's US extradition case in the United Kingdom has his "highest trust," Renata Avila, a member of his legal team, told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th January, 2020) Valentina Shvartsman - Team of lawyers working on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's US extradition case in the United Kingdom has his "highest trust," Renata Avila, a member of his legal team, told Sputnik.
"[Assange] and his family are very comfortable with his team of lawyers, and he and his family respect and accept as good the defense that is going on now. To be very precise, the active team of lawyers that is dealing with the UK case is, again, part of the most trusted lawyers that Julian has," Avila said.
The remarks come after the Sputnik website spoke with Aymeric Monville, the author of a book about Assange, who said that the WikiLeaks founder's defense was becoming increasingly "inaudible" and cited US investigative journalist Lucy Komisar's claims that several lawyers on the whistleblower's team were also working for the US government.
Avila argued that the legal team had gained Assange's trust after working with him for a decade. She said Assange's legal team handling his UK case was a small core group of lawyers working around the clock to fend off the entire apparatus of the US Department of Justice, and therefore had little time for daily briefings.
"Most of them, if not all, do not charge Julian. Not all, but most of them are doing pro bono because they like Julian and they believe in the principles and what he represents," Avila said.
The lawyer said that Assange had not had a job since he was first arrested in the United Kingdom in 2010, shortly after his website leaked hundreds of thousands of secret US cables on Iraq and Afghanistan wars. His legal expenses are covered by donations to a fund that is fully transparent, she added.
Assange's international team, Avila said, is made up of several sets of specialist lawyers, including attorneys with expertise in the First Amendment rights and criminal litigation in the United States, and those dealing with sexual assault charges filed against him in Sweden. Lawyers in France are trying to get him asylum and are championing his rights at the Strasbourg court. There are also teams in his native country of Australia and Iceland, where banks once refused to process payments to WikiLeaks. At some point, the team included 125 lawyers, according to Avila.
