Julian Assange says he will turn himself in to British police if he loses an appeal he filed with the United Nations.
The WikiLeaks founder has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in west London since 2012, to avoid extradition to Sweden where he is accused of rape.
Assange said he submitted a complaint to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention about his case in 2014. Justice For Assange, a site set up to fight for his release, said the panel is expected to rule this week whether Assange’s detention arbitrarily deprived him of his liberty. In other words, if it is illegal.
“Should the UN announce tomorrow that I have lost my case against the United Kingdom and Sweden I shall exit the embassy at noon on Friday to accept arrest by British police,” Assange said in a statement posted by WikiLeaks.
Retreat to the embassy
Assange, an Australian, has not been charged and has denied the rape claim. He says it is retaliation for WikiLeaks releasing thousands of pages of government secrets.
He has said he fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty if he is charged and convicted of publishing those documents.
The Swedes, who want to question him for sex-crime allegations unrelated to WikiLeaks, issued an arrest warrant in 2010. Assange was in London at the time.
As he fought to have the warrant dismissed, Ecuador granted him political asylum – and he’s been living in its London embassy since 2012.
‘Framed by political events’
In his appeal to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Assange said his confinement has deprived him of access to fresh air or sunlight and adequate medical care. He says he is subject to round-the-clock surveillance and remains in a constant state of insecurity.
“This is an application framed by political events,” he wrote. “[I]t could be distilled to the simple and irrefutable fact that a political refugee, who has never been charged, has been deprived of their liberty for nearly four years, and confined in a very small space for over two years.”
In other instances of detention, the U.N. Working Group called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar. after years of house arrest. But the group has also ruled for the release of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy. But he remains in prison.( Joshua Berlinger)
Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/04/europe/julian-assange-investigation/index.html
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