• Fund appeal for Assange’s legal defence wins significant public support
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/24/assa-a24.html

    A few weeks out from final extradition hearings, set to begin on September 7, the US issued a new superseding indictment, over a year after it was required to submit its final charge sheet.

    As the WSWS has documented, the superseding indictment contains no new charges or evidence. The additional material is substantially based upon the testimony of two US Federal Bureau of Investigations informants, one of whom has previously been convicted of impersonating Assange and stealing tens of thousands of dollars from WikiLeaks.

    The new indictment extends the assault on press freedom, presenting WikiLeaks’ assistance to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as illegitimate and raising the prospect of a broader US dragnet against other members of the publishing organisation.

    A WSWS perspective last week noted that the late filing of the new indictment confronted Assange’s legal team with the impossible “choice of whether to accept the further sabotage of their client’s case” by proceeding with the September hearings “or prolong the endangerment of his life with more months in prison” through an appeal for a delay.

    In a blatant legal abuse, the WikiLeaks founder has still not been rearrested on the basis of the superseding indictment, so he is being held in Belmarsh Prison on a lapsed charge sheet.