CIA ‘murder’ plot report a game-changer in Julian Assange extradition fight, fiancée says
- US seeking extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from UK for publishing military secrets
- Last month, Yahoo News reported CIA officials had plotted assassinating or kidnapping Assange in London
The partner of Julian Assange said a media report that the CIA had plotted to kill or kidnap the WikiLeaks founder was a game-changer in his fight against extradition from Britain to the United States.
US authorities will this week begin their appeal against a British judge’s refusal to extradite Assange – who is wanted on 18 criminal charges including breaking a spying law – because his mental health problems meant he would be at risk of suicide.
Last month, Yahoo News reported CIA officials had drawn up options for former US president Donald Trump’s administration for dealing with Assange while he was holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, including assassinating or kidnapping him.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the Yahoo report. The US government lawyer who is leading the prosecution of Assange did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This (Yahoo report) is a game changer going into the appeal because it shows the true nature, the true origins, the true criminality of the US actions against Julian,” his fiancée Stella Moris, with whom Assange has had two children, told reporters.
WikiLeaks came to prominence when it began to publish thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010. Soon afterwards Sweden sought Assange’s extradition from Britain over allegations of sex crimes. When he lost that case against extradition in 2012, he fled to the Ecuadorean embassy.
He was finally dragged out from the embassy in April 2019 and jailed for breaching British bail conditions, although the Swedish case against him had already been dropped.