The Lille criminal lawyer Eric Dupond-Moretti. - M.Libert / 20 Minutes

Eric Dupond-Moretti and Antoine Vey, the new French lawyers of Julian Assange, have announced that they want to meet Emmanuel Macron to obtain political asylum in France for the founder of WikiLeaks, they said on Thursday.

"We will ask to meet the President of the Republic in the days to come, not to say in the hours to come" to explain to him the "desperate situation" that Julian Assange is going through, imprisoned in London and threatened with extradition to the United States who accused him of spying, detailed Mr. Dupond-Moretti.

The European Court of Human Rights seized

"He finds it increasingly difficult to speak. He is sometimes prostrate, "he added, expressing his concern. "The 175 years in prison that he is promised in the United States is an unworthy, unbearable punishment and contrary to the idea that we can all have human rights," he said. he continued during this press conference organized with RSF and in the presence of Julian Assange's father, John Shipton. "We are of course working on the possibility of asking the French authorities for political asylum, our Constitution allows, we have an example", "the political asylum granted to Ayatollah Khomeini", added the lawyer, admitting that this was "not the best example".

In addition, he intends to seize with Belgian lawyers the European Court of Human Rights: "for technical reasons, this jurisdiction has already been seized" and considered the request "inadmissible but we will seize it on another basis" . "We collectively reflect on the legal means which could ensure its protection in a concrete way, we plan to file a series of requests before all the institutions which can be mobilized to allow legal protection", added Antoine Vey.

An asylum application lodged in Switzerland

The two French lawyers joined the Assange international defense team about a month ago, alongside Belgian, British, Spanish and American lawyers, under the coordination of former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, also present at the conference. A first asylum request in France made by the former counsel of Julian Assange, Juan Branco, had not succeeded. An asylum application has also just been made to Switzerland by NGOs.

"We are analyzing the legal channels which make it possible to file this request", in particular via the President of the Republic, said Mr. Vey, specifying that he did not know the content of the first request. On the choice of France, Me Dupond-Moretti put forward criteria of professional connection, part of the structures of Wikileaks is hosted in France, and personal. Julian Assange lived in the country from 2007 to 2010, his second child, still a minor, and the mother of this child are of French nationality and reside in the country.

World

Donald Trump denies offering a pardon to Julian Assange if he cleared Russia

World

Treatment of Assange puts his life "in danger" according to a UN expert

  • Wikileaks
  • Emmanuel Macron
  • France
  • Eric Dupond-Moretti
  • Society
  • Julian Assange
  • Political aylum