Wikileaks grundare, Julian Assange, sitter där han sitter i det brittiska högsäkerhetsfängelset Belmarsh – i väntan på eventuell utlämning till USA.
Han har fått besök av FN:s specielle rapportör om tortyr Nils Melzer och två läkare. Till la Repubblica säger Melzer att han är djupt oroad över Assanges hälsotillstånd. Såväl Storbritannien som USA, Sverige och Ecuador får kritik i den diplomatiska korrespondens som nyligen offentliggjorts.
”Gravely concerned”. The UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, does not mince words in conveying his serious concerns about the situation of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. Last May, Melzer visited Assange at the Belmarsh high-security prison in London assisted by two doctors who are experts on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. At that time, Nils Melzer had already publicly denounced that Assange showed ”all symptoms typical of prolonged exposure to psychological torture”, but in a newly released diplomatic correspondence, the UN Special Rapporteur accuses the United States, Britain, Sweden and Ecuador of grave responsibility for the highly worrying condition of Assange and denounces the risk of his extradition to the US exposing him to excessively severe criminal sanctions and serious abuses of his human rights.
Att Assange har hälsoproblem är kanske inte att förvånas över. Han har tillbringat ett och ett halvt år i husarrest, sju år på Ecuadors ambassad i London och nu sitter han i ett brittiskt högsäkerhetsfängelse i 50 veckor. Utlämnas han till USA kan han komma att dömas till upp till 175 år i fängelse – för publicistisk verksamhet som de amerikanska myndigheterna vill klassa som spioneri.
Sverige får en hel del kritik av FN-rapportören:
As for the rape case, which will expire only in August 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur writes that ”All records available to me show that Mr. Assange voluntarily and consistently cooperated with the Swedish police and prosecutors, both during his presence in Sweden in 2010 and after he sought refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in June 2012”. The rape investigation was closed in 2010 by the Stockholm chief prosecutor Eva Finné, just five days after it had been opened. Finné had determined that the ”conduct alleged by (the complainant) discloses no crime at all”. In the last nine years the rape investigation has been opened three times and the UN Special Rapporteur notes that ”for almost nine years, the Swedish authorities have consistently maintained, revived and fueled the ”rape”-suspect narrative against Mr. Assange” and that ”In reality, the complainants never intended to report a sexual offense against Mr. Assange, but they had been pressured (”railroaded”) into doing so by the Swedish police and had subsequently decided to ’sell’their story to the tabloid press”.
Sverige anser sig dock inte ha gjort något fel:
The British and Ecuadorian authorities have not yet responded to the UN Special Rapporteur’s conclusions on Julian Assange, while the US and Sweden promptly replied. They deny everything: Julian Assange has never been arbitrarily detained by Sweden and Britain, as the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) established four years ago: he stayed in the Embassy voluntarily and could have left at any time, the US and Sweden say. This denial strategy by the US and Sweden does not address why, for example, Sweden didn’t appeal the UNWGAD’s decision, if it considered it fundamentally wrong, whereas Britain did appeal it, but lost its appeal.