Between 2012 and 2019 he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, until in April of that year he was arrested by an extradition order from the United States.
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, revealed this Monday that he sent a letter to today’s former US president Donald Trump, before he left office, to request his exoneration of the Australian journalist Julian Assange, to whom the authorities of The US seeks to judge by the serious revelations of its WikiLeaks portal.
“Before the end of the administration of President Donald Trump, I sent him a letter asking him to exonerate him, forgive him (Assange),” said the Mexican president during his morning press conference from the National Palace, the first of the year.
López Obrador recalled that at the end of any administration in the United States, outgoing presidents have the power to exonerate certain defendants “so I sent that letter (to Trump, 2017-2021) but I had no response”, argument.
Likewise, he reiterated his offer of asylum to the Australian activist and, furthermore, considered that the US Government should act with “humanism” in the case.
“Assange is ill and it would be a show of solidarity, of brotherhood, to allow him to receive asylum in the country that Assange decided to live, including Mexico,” he said.
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López Obrador assured that the right to asylum is part of Mexico’s foreign policy.
And he recalled that this has a regulation in the sense that whoever receives the benefit of asylum must act with respect to the laws of the country and cannot intervene in external affairs.
Given this, he considered that the Australian journalist meets the requirements and “does not represent any danger to Assange in Mexico.”
Assange is in preventive detention in a London jail, awaiting his possible extradition to the United States, which was authorized by the British Justice on December 10, although his family already anticipated in his day that he would appeal the decision.
The US authorities accuse him of a score of crimes for the information and documents that he leaked on his WikiLeaks portal, in which he exposed serious abuses committed by United States troops in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange’s defense questions US promises about his prison treatment
Assange was initially detained in 2010 at the behest of Sweden for a case of alleged sexual crimes later dismissed.
Between 2012 and 2019 he took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London, until in April of that year he was arrested by an extradition order from the United States, after the Government of that Latin American country removed his political asylum status.
In January 2020, López Obrador has already reached out to Asssange and offered him asylum. (I)
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