WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be released or placed under house arrest due to the outbreak coronavirus in Belmarsh prison, where he is being held. The special rapporteur called for this UN on torture Nils Melzer , according to Explica.
Meltzer stressed that Assange’s solitary confinement in a maximum security prison is disproportionate to the charges against him and is not a necessary measure. He has been detained on an arrest warrant on subsequently rebutted sexual assault suspicions and is awaiting the outcome of his extradition case – no need to keep him locked up.
The UN representative noted that Assange’s fragile health is under threat: the harsh conditions in which he was placed, according to Melzer, are tantamount to torture. He said that 65 out of 160 prisoners serving sentences in prison had previously been diagnosed with coronavirus. At the same time, Assange has prerequisites for the development of complications against the background of COVID-19.
American Justice Department filed 17 charges against Assange in May 2019, adding one more later. In case of extradition to the United States, which is currently under way, the founder of WikiLeaks faces up to 175 years in prison. The current president of the United States Donald Trump claimed that he was ready to pardon Assange if he named the source from which he received the texts of letters from the hacked servers Democratic Party in 2016
In 2012, fearing extradition to Sweden due to rape charges (the case was dropped in 2019), Assange applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. There he was continuously for almost seven years. Assange is currently serving a prison sentence in the UK for violating bail conditions.