Sweden, which issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange, should reassure him that he will not be extradited to the United States if he accepts to go to Stockholm for questioning, said Amnesty International (AI) Thursday. The founder of WikiLeaks website fled on June 19 to the Embassy of Ecuador in London in order to avoid extradition to Sweden in a case of alleged rape and sexual assault. He says he fears that he will then be extradited to the United States where he will be tried for espionage because of the WikiLeaks disclosure of hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic telegrams.
“The Swedish authorities should give UK and Julian Assange assurances that when he leaves the Embassy of Ecuador and agrees to go to Sweden (…), he will not be extradited to the United States,” said Amnesty International in a statement. “First, this would allow an exit from the current impasse and then it will do justice to women who accused him of sexual assault,” said Nicola Duckworth, Director of Research at the non-governmental organization (NGO) for the Human Rights based in London.
“It is vital for states to show that they treat in the most serious way the allegations of sexual violence and that they also respect the rights of claimants and the accused,” he said.
Amnesty International recognizes that there is no “evidence that Sweden plans to extradite Assange to the United States”, but the organization believes that “the transfer of Julian Assange to the United States in the current circumstances could expose him to a real risk of human rights violation”.
AI refers in particular to “the possibility of his speech rights to be violated and the risk that he will be imprisoned in contravention of any rules prohibiting torture and any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.
London, intending to comply with the Swedish arrest warrant, and Quito, which granted political asylum to Assange, have not reached an agreement on the case during a meeting of foreign ministers of the two countries on Thursday in New York, the UN General Assembly.
On the other hand, the Ecuadorian government said on Thursday that Britain could issue a laissez-passer to the founder of WikiLeaks, under an extradition treaty between the two countries in the nineteenth century. This treaty, signed on 20 September 1840, allows “to show that Britain can issue a laissez-passer,” said Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino of Ecuador for Latin American channel Telesur.
The text “provides that no person shall be extradited if the offense concerned is not political,” said Patino, stressing that he informed thereof his British counterpart William Hague, at the UN General Assembly in New York.
Hague “recognized the validity of this Agreement, even if the interpretation is different” from the Ecuadorian opinion, the Ecuadorian foreign minister added, announcing an upcoming meeting, but without specifying a date. London and Quito stressed Thursday that they did not reach a solution for Assange after the meeting of the two ministers in New York.
Ecuador, which shares Assange’s fear that he could be extradited from Sweden to the United States, granted him political asylum on August 16, but Britain refuses to let him leave the diplomatic mission.
Patino also appreciated as a “significant step” that Australia has “proposed to handle the health problem” of Assange, which has also been raised, according to him, in his meeting with British Foreign Minister.
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