President Biden has said he is considering dropping the prosecution of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, after a request from the Australian government.
Washington has spent years trying to extradite Assange to face charges over WikiLeaks’s release of secret military and diplomatic files in 2010 relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange, 52, is waiting to learn if he can make a last-ditch appeal against extradition to the United States after a UK court delayed a decision on his case last month. It is expected on May 20.
Australia has called on the US for years to drop its prosecution of Assange, who is an Australian citizen. In February, Anthony Albanese, the prime minister, backed a motion calling for his return.
On Wednesday, Biden said: “We are considering it.” The National Security Council has been contacted for comment.
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In a post on Twitter/X directed at the US president, Assange’s wife, Stella, said: “Do the right thing. Drop the charges.” His lawyer said the news was encouraging.
American prosecutors allege that Assange encouraged and helped the US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published, putting lives at risk.
Assange was indicted in 2018 by a US grand jury on 17 espionage charges and a single charge of unlawful use of a computer. The offences carry a potential sentence of capital punishment.
• Read more on why Assange faces extradition
In March, his extradition was put on hold after the High Court in London said Washington must provide assurances he would not face the death penalty.
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The judge, Dame Victoria Sharp, ruled that Assange had a “real prospect of success” in his appeal against extradition unless there was an assurance he would not face execution. A final hearing will possibly take place next month, when judges will give the US authorities three weeks to give such assurances.
Thursday will mark five years since Assange was taken to Belmarsh prison in London, having been removed from the Ecuadorean embassy. Assange had been staying at the embassy as a fugitive since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex assault charges, which he denied and which Sweden dropped in 2019.
Assange’s supporters say his actions in leaking details of US military misconduct in Iraq and Afghanistan should be protected speech under the American constitution’s First Amendment.
“This is a case that just should never have been started in the first place,” Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, said.
Stella Assange has said he was being persecuted for exposing “the true cost of war in human lives” and that his health has continued to deteriorate in prison.
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Manning was arrested in 2010 and sentenced to 35 years in prison for passing classified documents to WikiLeaks. Manning’s sentence was commuted to seven years by President Obama in 2017. Australia argues there is a disconnect between America’s treatment of Assange and Manning.
WikiLeaks, founded by Assange in 2006, claims to have published more than ten million classified files including governmental reports on corruption, spying and civilian deaths.
In June 2016, the site published thousands of documents stolen in a Russian intelligence hack of the Democratic National Committee computer servers. These were damaging to Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic presidential candidate, who later denounced Assange as “a tool of Russian intelligence”.
Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed to investigate allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, ultimately decided there was insufficient proof to charge Assange with criminal conspiracy charges related to the hack.
