Former Ecuadorian counsul says Assange will not get a fair trial in the UK or the US

Former Ecuadorian Сonsul in London Fidel Narvaez said Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition case that the whistleblower will not get a fair trial either in the UK or in the United States.

Julian Assange

“There is plenty of evidence showing that Assange is a victim of judicial persecution and that he is not getting a fair extradition trial here in the UK, and certainly will not have a fair trial in the U.S.”, the former diplomat said.

According to Narvaez, the judicial persecution against the Australian journalist began even before he was arrested on 11 April 2019, at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he enjoyed political asylum for seven years to avoid being sent to Sweden until Ecuador’s current government handed him over to the UK police last year.

After being sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for jumping bail in a hearing that lasted less than 15 minutes, Assange was sent to Belmarsh maximum-security prison in east London, where visits by relatives and lawyers are normally restricted.

Narvaez said that since the coronavirus pandemic struck, the WikiLeaks founder has seen his solitary confinement conditions worsened. The whistleblower has not been allowed to see his partner and sons, nor meet his lawyers in person, due to social distance restrictions.

It even took months for the prison authorities to give him a pair of reading glasses and a radio receiver he had requested, Narvaez commented.

He also recalled that when the extradition trial began in February in a London court, Assange was not allowed to sit with his lawyers, and was instead forced to watch the process from behind high walls made of glass panel.

Asked about the new “superseding indictment” against the WikiLeaks founder that the U.S. prosecution made public even before formally presenting it to the British court dealing with the extradition request, Narvaez called it a “publicity stunt”.
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Credit: Sputnik News