Julian Assange launches legal challenge against Trump administration
Source: The Guardian
WikiLeaks founders lawyers file urgent application in attempt to prevent extradition to US
Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent
@owenbowcott
Wed 23 Jan 2019 09.00 EST
Julian Assange, the fugitive WikiLeaks founder whose diplomatic sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy appears increasingly precarious, is launching a legal challenge against the Trump administration.
Lawyers for the Australian activist have filed an urgent application to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) aimed at forcing the hand of US prosecutors, requiring them to unseal any secret charges against him.
The legal move is an attempt to prevent Assanges extradition to the US at a time that a new Ecuadorian government has been making his stay in the central London apartment increasingly inhospitable.
He has been staying in the Knightsbridge flat, which houses the embassy, since 2012 when he fled extradition proceedings at the UKs supreme court. Swedish prosecutors have since dropped their request to extradite him to Stockholm over a rape investigation.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/23/julian-assange-launches-legal-challenge-against-trump-administration-extradition
underpants
(182,950 posts)He loves Assange.
Princess Turandot
(4,787 posts)He's also demanding that Ecuador "cease its 'espionage activities' against him".
Good luck with that, Jules. The IACHR has a court associated with it, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. But since the US never accepted its jurisdiction, the court will not accept the case from the IACHR were it to refer it.
I wonder who is picking the legal tab for him. He also recently filed that unsuccessful lawsuit in Ecuador's courts, which went through several appeals.
SoCalNative
(4,613 posts)Good luck with that