The UN special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer

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The British authorities on 11 April arrested the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

Cancillería del Ecuador / flickr.com

UK, USA, Sweden and Ecuador refused to investigate the case of the use of psychological torture against the founder of the portal Wikileaks Julian Assange, said at a press conference in new York on Tuesday, UN special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer. His words leads to “Interfax”.

According to Meltzer, who visited Assange with physicians in a British prison in may this year, the founder of Wikileaks was subjected to psychological torture for a long time, and in accordance with the Convention against torture, countries which in recent years was responsible for his fate, should investigate the matter. “We appealed to all interested States with a request to investigate the matter, to cease to pressure him and make every effort to enforce his rights, which, in my opinion, systematically violated,” said Meltzer. However, the investigation did not agree, none of the countries.

We will remind, the British authorities on 11 April arrested WikiLeaks founder in Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was in 2012. Asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador Assange asked to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was accused of rape and harassment and coercion to acts of a sexual nature. Assange also feared extradition to the US where he faces a prison sentence for the publication of documents of the state Department.

British authorities in turn issued a warrant for the arrest of Assange because of the fact that he violated the terms of bail – in that moment, when Assange turned to Ecuador with a request for political asylum, the English court examined the request for his extradition to Sweden.

However, having the opportunity to get out on bail, Assange fled to the Embassy of Ecuador. After the arrest of the WikiLeaks founder in April 2019, a British court sentenced him to 50 weeks jail.

After that, the American Ministry of justice has published another 17 counts of criminal charges against Assange. Among them – illegal to publish names of confidential sources “who provided information to American diplomats around the world, as well as the United States forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The names of local residents, as well as journalists, religious leaders, human rights defenders and political dissidents.

In addition, the accused WikiLeaks founder has been charged with conspiracy and using a former military intelligence analyst in the U.S. army Bradley (Chelsea) Manning in obtaining access to classified documents related to nezaboravnog USA. According to the Ministry, this information was to be used to the detriment of the United States or to another foreign country. While Assange “encouraged and forced to” manning to get this information to WikiLeaks.

In addition, the conversation of manning and Assange show that the WikiLeaks founder would like to hack the encrypted value of the password on the computers of the Ministry of defense, attached to the system of the secret Protocol of the government of the United States network (SIPRNet). This network is used for transmission of secret documents and messages. In this regard Assange also charged with conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

In the case of recognition of Assange guilty on all charges he faces a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment on each item, with the exception of the paragraph about the conspiracy, computer hacking. This charge carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment. Thus, the overall sentence will be 175 years old. In response, the leadership of WikiLeaks, accused the administration trump the violation of the principle of freedom of the press, proclaiming it the First amendment to the U.S. Constitution and setting a dangerous precedent, after which repression will not be insured by any one journalist.