US President Joe Biden has said he is considering a request from Australia to drop the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The country’s parliament recently passed a measure – backed by PM Anthony Albanese – calling for the return of Mr Assange to his native Australia.
The US wants to extradite the 52-year-old from the UK on criminal charges over the leaking of military records.
Mr Assange denies the charges, saying the leaks were an act of journalism.
The president was asked about Australia’s request on Wednesday and said: “We’re considering it.”
Mr Albanese said Mr Biden’s comments were “encouraging” and he was “increasingly optimistic about an outcome”.
“We want Mr Assange to be able to return home,” he told Sky News Australia.
The Australian measure passed parliament in February. At the time, Mr Albanese told MPs: “People will have a range of views about Mr Assange’s conduct… But regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on and on indefinitely.”
Mr Assange, 52, is fighting extradition in the UK courts.
The extradition was put on hold in March after London’s High Court said the United States must provide assurances he would not face the death penalty.
The High Court is due to evaluate any responses from the US authorities at the end of May.
Mr Assange’s wife Stella said she was also encouraged by Mr Biden’s comments.
“It looks like things could be moving in the right direction,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that she believed the president should have dropped the case against her husband on the first day of his premiership.
“Lots of people around the world… have been saying for years that this case should be dropped, that it is a danger to press freedom.”
When asked about her husband’s health, Stella Assange said he was “extremely unwell”.
“He’s stressed, obviously, because he could be extradited to the US to face 175 years in prison.”
Kristinn Hrafnsson, the current editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, said that it was “not too late” for the American president to stop the extradition attempt, which he said was a “politically motivated act” by Mr Biden’s predecessor.
US prosecutors want to try the Wikileaks founder on 18 counts, almost all under the Espionage Act, over the release of confidential US military records and diplomatic messages relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr Assange founded the Wikileaks website in 2006. It claims to have published more than ten million documents, including many confidential or restricted official reports related to war, spying and corruption.
In 2010, it released a video from a US military helicopter which showed civilians being killed in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
WikileaksIt also published thousands of confidential documents supplied by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
These suggested that the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the war in Afghanistan.
Manning leaked the files to Wikileaks in 2010. She was later jailed for 35 years, but former President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.
The US Department of Justice called the leaks “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States”.
Mr Assange has been in Belmarsh prison in London for the past five years pending a number of legal challenges.
Before that he had taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years.
He initially faced a Swedish arrest warrant accusing him of having raped one woman and sexually assaulted another. He denied the claims.
In 2019 the Swedish authorities dropped the case, after he had been indicted on the US charges, saying too much time had passed since the original complaint.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
What are the odds that he has a fatal accident once he goes back to Australia? I would guess them to be very high. If he is smart, he will high tail it to Russia for some relative safety.
Oh, he’s related to Snowden?
Snowden showed the way to live a relatively peaceful life when you are the enemy of the District of Corruption.
Yeah. Run like Hell until you come to the end of the fuckin’ Earth!
He was the SMART one!
He’ll never see Australia again. He’ll never be free again. The military industrial complex will never allow it…nor should they.
Why?
Because .mil classified their war crimes, thus making them not war crimes … or something.
You didn’t mind the secrecy when we were building our nuclear program. You can’t be that much of a hypocrite, can you?
Because he seduced a US service MAN to commit treason. He and Manning should both hang IMNSHO.
Bradley is the one who they should be mad at, but since he changed his appearance, they have accepted him. Even Bathhouse Barry likes men who pretend to be women.
Dude. They made him cut his BALLS off ! One down, one to go!
I disagree. He has been made an example. They are done with him, except the continued torture.
First forgive student debt, now pardon Assange. Apparently, FJB is more politically savvy than Warp Speed Bro.
That might seem true, at least until you realize that he hasn’t the foggiest fucking idea of who Assange is. Warp Speed Donnie knows who Assange is, he just fails to give a fuck about him, making the two presidential hosers equally worthless.
They are called Jews and they hate God and they hate you.
You are funny. You tout God and baptism yet hate who and what Jesus was.
You speak of things you know nothing about.