Ecuadorian Ex-Consul Says Terrified Assange May Never Again Celebrate Birthday in Freedom

LONDON (Sputnik) – As Julian Assange is about to pass his fiftieth birthday in a British prison this Saturday, his main liaison during refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and former Ecuadorian consul, Fidel Narvaez, told Sputnik that he was terrified that the WikiLeaks founder might never celebrate his birthday as a free man.

This week supporters have been speaking out and organizing rallies in support of Assange, who faces up to 175 years in solitary confinement if extradited to the United States and convicted there.

The former consul is sure that Assange, who has been held in a top security prison in Belmarsh since 2019, pending an appeal in an extradition case initiated by the United States, is in fact a political prisoner, and the only thing the government wants is to prolong his imprisonment.

Such a protracted case is not the responsibility of a certain US administration or party, but of the country’s military circles, who want revenge on Assange for disclosing secret information, the former consul believes.

The WikiLeaks founder was arrested in London on 11 April 2019, and sentenced to fifty weeks in prison for breaking his bail in 2012, when he took refuge inside the Ecuadorean embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was facing sexual assault charges which were later dropped.

The US wants the whistleblower for espionage after WikiLeaks published thousands of secret files and classified information that shed light on war crimes committed by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sourse: sputniknews.com