Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne discussed Assange's case with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during her visit to Washington in September, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed.
Payne has previously dismissed calls to pressure the US to drop charges against its embattled citizen, saying in February that Canberra “does not interfere in the legal processes of other countries."
But a spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs and Trade Department told the Guardian Australia that its minister 'has raised the situation of Mr. Assange with her US and UK counterparts, most recently with US Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken on 15 September.'
According to the spokesperson, Australia wanted to convey to its American partners that the WikiLeaks founder was “entitled to due process, humane and fair treatment” as well as medical and legal assistance, despite the espionage charges he's facing in the US.
Plot to Kidnap Assange?
According to the report, Mike Pompeo wanted to exact “revenge” on the publisher for revealing the CIA’s extra-sensitive set of hacking tools known as “Vault 7."
Pompeo hasn't denied or confirmed the allegations but the former official said that he'll make “no apologies” for what he did inside the Trump administration when “working diligently” to make sure the US protected its sensitive info from adversaries.
Protesters hold a sign to support WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in front of the EU British Embassy in Brussels on December 07, 2020
© AFP 2023 / JOHN THYS
According to Australia’s Greens senator Janet Rice, the report confirms that the US government never cared about giving Assange “a fair trial." She says the Australian government should demand the activist’s “immediate release."
Assange was arrested in the UK on 11 April 2019 after the Ecuadorian authorities revoked his asylum status. He was found guilty of breaching his bail conditions and thrown into Belmarsh maximum-security jail. His legal team continues to fight his extradition to the US. In January, a London judge blocked the US' extradition requests citing concerns for Assange’s mental health, saying he was a suicide risk.
The Australian is being accused of conspiring with US army analyst Chelsea Manning to hack US military computer system and obtain thousands of classified documents. This data was later published by WikiLeaks, exposing America’s war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as various abuses of power.