Arrest of Julian Assange a ‘priority’ for US

Reports from the US say authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Donald Trump has given the OK for the Justice Department to go ahead with espionage charges.

The BBC have reported that US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, says arresting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is a “priority and they had already begun to step up their efforts to make a case and put people in jail.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week denounced WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service” and a threat to US national security. “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service­ often abetted by state actor­s like Russia.” Mike Pompeo said.

Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden on a rape allegation and extradition to the US for questioning over WikiLeaks’ releases of top secret government documents.

The Australian reported that Mr Assange’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said yesterday there was “no legitimate basis for the Department of Justice to treat WikiLeaks differently than it treats other journalists.” “The fact of the matter is … however frustrating it might be to whoever looks bad when information is published … WikiLeaks is a publisher, and they are publishing truthful information that is in the public’s interest,” Mr Pollack said. “Democracy thrives because there are independent journalists reporting on what it is that the government is doing.”

A documentary about Assange has been created over six years and has been signed to be screened later this year on Showtime. A preview for the doco named Risk was screened in the US following the season final of Homeland. Homeland featured a story this season about an organisation spreading misinformation over the internet.

Watch the preview here:

 

What do you think? Should Julian Assange be charged?