"On October 1, Julian Assange will arrive in Strasbourg to give evidence before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) which is scheduled to meet from 8.30am to 10am [06:30-08:00 GMT] at the Palace of Europe … He will give testimony before the committee, which will also hear the findings that his imprisonment was politically motivated," WikiLeaks said in a statement on X.
The move comes after PACE released an inquiry report into the Assange case that confirmed that he qualified as a political prisoner and called on the United Kingdom to conduct an independent review into whether the whistleblower was exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Australian-born journalist will give testimony in Strasbourg in person "due to the exceptional nature of the invitation," despite being in recovery, WikiLeaks added. The hearing will be live-streamed.
Assange was transferred to London's high-security Belmarsh prison in April 2019 on bail breach charges. In the US, he faced spying charges for shedding light on war crimes and human rights violations committed by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.