Amnesty International on Tuesday responded with “pleasure” to the “positive news” of the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from a high-security prison in the UK, where he had been imprisoned since 2019.
“Amnesty International welcomes the positive news that Julian Assange has finally been released from custody in the UK after five years in prison, and that this ordeal is coming to an end for him and his family,” said the Secretary General of Amnesty International. Statement by Agnès Callamard.
“We firmly believe that Julian Assange should never have been arrested and have consistently called for the charges to be dropped,” Callamard added, referring to the 1,901 days he spent in Belmarsh maximum security prison awaiting the outcome of his extradition case to the United States. States that wanted to try him for 18 crimes of espionage and computer hacking for releasing classified documents that in 2010 and 2011 exposed human rights abuses committed by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.