UN warns against extraditing Assange to US

Sending Julian Assange to face US justice would amount to “life sentence without parole” and even risk the death penalty, the UN’s top official on torture has said, adding to the pressure on the British government over the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition.

Nils Melzer, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, said that if Assange was sent to the US, he would be “exposed to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights”. Mr Melzer also attacked what he called “a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation against Assange” in the UK, US, Sweden and Ecuador, including by politicians and members of the judiciary.

Assange has been in Belmarsh prison since he was sentenced in April to 50 weeks in jail for skipping bail in 2012 and fleeing to the Ecuadorean embassy.

Last week US prosecutors brought 17 new charges against Mr Assange, accusing him of obtaining and publishing classified information in violation of the Espionage Act. If convicted on multiple counts he could spend several years, if not decades, behind bars.

Prosecutors allege Assange conspired with the former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in obtaining classified information. He is also accused of posting a narrower set of classified documents that identified Afghan and Iraqi sources.

Those accusations added to a previous charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, which was levelled by the US against the WikiLeaks founder immediately after he was hauled out of the Ecuadorean embassy by British police. The US filed an extradition request at the same time.

However, earlier this month Swedish prosecutors said they were reopening a mothballed investigation into a rape allegation against Mr Assange, and would seek to issue a new European arrest warrant to extradite him to Sweden after he had served a 10-month sentence in the UK for avoiding a court summons.

That means the British home secretary will be presented with an awkward decision, as they will have the final word on which extradition request should take precedence.

On Thursday Assange failed to appear in for a routine hearing in connection with the US extradition request because of ill health.

Mr Melzer — who accused democratic governments of “ganging up” on the WikiLeaks founder and who has raised concerns about his health before — said the UK should demand a guarantee from Swedish prosecutors that Assange would not be extradited to the US after the legal process over the rape allegation was complete.

Any trial in the US “will be a political trial and a show trial for everyone to see what happens if you do what WikiLeaks does”, he added. “That’s the real narrative of this story. It’s not even about the harm he supposedly caused, it’s the harm [governments fear] could be caused if 1,000 Julian Assanges popped up around the world. We can have a debate about WikiLeaks but it should be open and transparent, not a witch hunt.”

Mr Melzer also said the US could bring further charges against Assange that could potentially carry the death penalty, though he admitted it was extremely unlikely such a sentence would ever be carried out.

Assange has been criticised for hiding in the Ecuadorean embassy in London rather than face justice in Sweden on the rape allegation and another claim of sexual assault. Mr Melzer said it was not true Assange had not wanted to face his accusers in Sweden, but that he had feared onward extradition to the US.

“Given the prejudice against him the US, and the Chelsea Manning trial, it is not a given that he will get a fair trial there.”

Mr Melzer also called for Assange to be given greater access to his legal team and to documents relevant to the various cases against him. “He is facing multiple proceedings by powerful states with many lawyers — he needs more support than a standard prisoner would,” he said.