The wife of Julian Assange said President Biden’s recent comments that his administration is considering dropping charges against her husband are a “good sign.”
Stella Assange was encouraged by Biden’s recent remarks regarding her husband’s case, she said.
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, is currently being held in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison.
“It looks like things could be moving in the right direction,” Stella Assange told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program. She added that Biden should’ve dropped the case on his first day in office.
Stella Assange’s remarks come after Biden was asked about the case during his meeting with Japan’s prime minister at the White House on Wednesday.
“We’re considering it,” Biden said.
Assange, an Australian citizen, was indicted in 2019 on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’s publication of classified U.S. documents. U.S. prosecutors have argued he encouraged and helped U.S. intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal diplomatic files and cables, which Assange’s platform published in 2010. The prosecutors said that put lives at risk.
First Amendment advocates and press freedom groups have said that Assange’s prosecution is a threat to free speech.
“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,” Stella Assange said.
Australia argued there is a difference in the way Assange and Manning have been treated. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Former President Obama commuted her sentence after she served seven years.
Assange has been in jail since 2019. The United Kingdom delayed his extradition last month, saying the U.S. needs to guarantee the WikiLeaks founder will not face the death penalty.
Stella Assange said her husband’s health is deteriorating and that “he’s stressed, obviously, because he could be extradited to the U.S. to face 175 years in prison.”