Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said today he hoped for an amicable end to the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after lawmakers increased pressure on the United States and Britain by passing a motion calling for the Australian citizen to be returned to his homeland.
Albanese told parliament that the days before the High Court in London hears Assange's appeal next week against extradition to the United States on espionage charges are "critical".
"I hope this can be resolved amicably. It is not for Australia to interfere in the legal processes of other countries, but it is appropriate for us to state our very strong position that those countries must take into account the need to bring this to an end," he said. is Albanian.
"Regardless of where people are, this thing cannot go on indefinitely," the Australian prime minister added.
Assange's wife told a news conference in London that the upcoming hearing was a matter of "life and death" as her husband's health in prison continued to deteriorate and she feared he would die behind bars.
"His life is in danger every day the longer he stays in prison," Stella Assange said. "If he is extradited, he will die," she added.
Assange faces a two-day hearing starting Tuesday in the High Court on whether his extradition appeal should be upheld in full. If he loses at that stage, he will exhaust all legal remedies in England, and his supporters fear he could be quickly sent to the US before he can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Albanese was among 86 MPs who voted in favor of a motion calling on the United States and Britain to bring "the process to an end so that Mr Assange can return home to his family in Australia".
There were 42 MPs against, including the majority of the main opposition party that unsuccessfully proposed the amendments.
Leaders of both the government and the opposition have publicly stated that the United States' search for Assange, 52, has dragged on.
Assange has been held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison since he was arrested in 2019 for breaching bail during a separate legal battle.
Before that, he spent seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on charges of rape and sexual assault. Sweden dropped the rape investigation in 2019 because too much time had passed.
Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton welcomed the lawmakers' vote on Thursday, adding that his "notorious" brother could potentially be extradited to the United States next week.
"It means that all ties to his family, his lifeline that keeps him alive in that prison, will be severed and he will be lost in the horrible prison system of the United States," Shipton told reporters in Parliament.
"Parliament has given its support at a crucial time and now gives the government a real mandate to push very, very hard for a political solution to bring Julian Assange home," Shipton added.
MP Andrew Wilkie, who launched the initiative, claims that extradition should be abandoned.
But the Australian government's language is more cautious. Australia's repeated calls for the charges to be "brought to a conclusion" leave open the possibility of a plea deal that would keep Assange out of prison.
Assange's position is considered a test of Albanese's position in relations with the administration of US President Joe Biden.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken rejected Albanese's position during a visit to Australia last year, saying Assange was accused of "very serious criminal offences" by releasing a trove of classified US documents more than a decade ago.
Assange faces 17 counts of espionage and one count of computer misuse over WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic and military documents more than a decade ago.
US prosecutors say he helped US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that were later released by WikiLeaks, putting lives at risk.
Australia claims there is a disconnect between the US treatment of Assange and Manning. Then-US President Barack Obama commuted Chelsea Manning's 35-year sentence to seven years, allowing her release in 2017.
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