United States Attorney General William Barr may be using the Julian Assange extradition case in the United Kingdom for political purposes, the WikiLeaks founder’s defense team alleged during a court hearing in which he appeared via link video from prison for the first time in months.
It was a fact that Donald Trump described the defense case as “a plot by the Democrats,” Edward Fitzgerald QC said at the hearing in Westminster magistrates court.
Fitzgerald said a new US replacement accusation, produced months after the start of attempts in the UK to secure his extradition, had “come up” on his defense team.
The indictment, which had not yet been formally filed in court, replaces previous allegations filed in February and related to 2010 and 2011.
A United States grand jury had previously indicted Assange on 18 charges, 17 of which are subject to the Espionage Act, involving a conspiracy to receive, obtain, and disclose classified diplomatic and military documents.
Details in the new indictment, released last month by the US Department of Justice, focus on conferences in 2009 in the Netherlands and Malaysia in which US prosecutors say Assange tried to recruit hackers they could find. Classified information, including regarding leak list “on the WikiLeaks website.
Monday’s hearing was the last in a series of administrative hearings. The chaotic deals meant that journalists, legal observers and some lawyers had difficulty accessing it remotely to listen. The full hearing of the extradition case was postponed until September due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wearing a beige sweater and pink shirt, Assange finally appeared in Belmarsh prison after an earlier attempt was aborted.
Fitzgerald told the hearing that it would be inappropriate if the new indictment led to the adjournment of the hearing until after the November presidential election in the United States.
Judge Vanessa Baraitser said at the hearing that the deadline had come to obtain more evidence before the extradition hearing, apart from psychiatric reports. She said she expected all parties to attend the hearing in September in person.
Outside of court, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said: “The ‘new’ substitution indictment does not actually contain anything new. All of the alleged events have been known to the prosecution for years.
“It does not contain new charges. What really happens here is that, despite its decade-long lead, the prosecution is still unable to build a coherent and credible case. So they have dropped their two previous allegations and gone on to a third attempt. “
US Justice Department officials have said: “The new indictment does not add additional charges to the previous 18-count indictment returned against Assange in May 2019. However, it broadens the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with which Assange was previously charged. “
