Julian Assange: Australian lawmakers demand creator of WikiLeaks be released

Australia’s government wants the US and UK to let Julian Assange go, and they just made a formal request for it.

MrAssange will go to the UK’s High Court next week to try to stop the US from sending him there.

An Australian person is in a London prison and the United States wants to charge them with spying. They could go to prison for up to 175 years if found guilty.

Australian government officials voted 86-42 in favor of letting Mr. Assange return home.

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, agrees with the decision and wants the Assange case to end soon since he became Prime Minister in 2022.

He talked to President Joe Biden about it during a visit in October.

A group of Australian politicians went to Washington to talk to US lawmakers and ask for Julian Assange to be released from prison.

The WikiLeaks founder is being sought after for sharing secret documents in 2010 and 2011. American authorities believe this action was illegal and put people in danger.

He has always said that the case against him is driven by politics. His lawyers say he might hurt himself if he is sent to the US.

In 2021, a judge in the UK stopped Mr. Assange from being sent to another country, because they were worried about his mental health.

The High Court changed its decision because the US showed that Mr Assange would be taken care of safely. In 2022, the Home Secretary Priti Patel said yes to the US’s request to send someone back there – and that made him try to appeal his case again.

MrAssange’s family wants the Australian government to help get him out of trouble. They are worried that if he is given to the US, he could be stuck in their justice system for a very long time.

Australia’s top lawyer, Mark Dreyfus, talked to the US’s main lawyer, Merrick Garland, about this issue when they met in Washington last month.

“This was a secret talk, but the government still has the same clear position on Mr. ” “It’s time to finish this matter,” Mr Dreyfus said in a statement.

Mr Assange has been in a very secure prison called Belmarsh since 2019. He had been at the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years, trying to get asylum in Ecuador.