Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Wednesday that he had asked US authorities to end the prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. “Trop is too much,” said the minister.
The US wants to prosecute the 51-year-old Australian because he has published more than 700,000 confidential documents since 2010 about US military and diplomatic activities, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Some time ago I made my point that trop is too much. It is time for this matter to end,” Albanese said in the Australian Parliament. “I have personally made this position clear to representatives of the US government. My position is clear.”
While saying he has no sympathy for many of Assange’s actions, the Australian Prime Minister wondered: “What’s the point of this trial that could drag on for years in the future?”
High security prison
British police arrested Assange in 2019 after he holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years. He is now in a maximum security prison awaiting his appeal against the British government’s decision to extradite him to the US.
Albanese compared Assange’s treatment to that of Chelsea Manning. He had been sentenced to 35 years in prison for stealing documents that ended up on Wikileaks. Then-President Barack Obama granted her a substantial reduced sentence. Chelsea Manning “can now move freely in American society,” the Australian prime minister argued.
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