US justice has invoked anti-espionage laws to indict again, Thursday, May 23, the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange, currently detained in London and subject to extradition proceedings to the United States.

The United States accuses the Australian of endangering some of its sources when WikiLeaks published in 2010 a colossal amount of military and diplomatic documents. They also accuse him of "plotting" with former military analyst Chelsea Manning, behind this unprecedented escape.

Julian Assange, 47, is suspected of "helping" and "inciting" Private Manning "to obtain confidential information knowing that it could be used to the detriment of the United States and to the benefit of a nation foreign ", said the Ministry of Justice, revealing 17 new charges.

"A direct threat to the freedom of the press"

"It's madness," the Wikileaks organization instantly responded on Twitter. "This is the end of journalism on national security issues and the end of the first amendment" of the US Constitution that guarantees freedom of expression, she added.

This is madness. It is the end of national security journalism and the first amendment. https://t.co/wlhsmsenFw

WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 23, 2019

The indictment "poses a direct threat to the freedom of the press and investigative journalism," Reporters Without Borders (RSF) added, while Freedom of the Press spoke of "a great danger for journalists."

"The ministry takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy, but Julian Assange is not a journalist," retorted John Demers, a national security affairs officer at the Justice Ministry, at a press conference. "No responsible journalist would knowingly publish the names of confidential sources in war zones, knowing that it would expose them to the greatest danger," he said.

Possible decades of imprisonment

In 2018, a grand jury indicted Julian Assange in the biggest secret for criminal conspiracy to carry out a "hacking", a sentence punishable by five years in prison. Specifically, the United States only criticized him for having offered Chelsea Manning to help him obtain a password from the Ministry of Defense.

But the grand jury did not stop there. In March 2019, he summoned Chelsea Manning, released after seven years in prison, to question him on Julian Assange. Former soldier Bradley Manning, who became a woman during his detention, refused to answer, criticizing an "opaque" and undemocratic procedure. Accused of "hindrance" to the proper functioning of justice, this icon of transgender people has been sent back to prison.

The grand jury having reached the end of its mandate, a new collective of citizens was drawn to continue the investigation. He is the one who made the new charges. The new charges may result in ten years' imprisonment each.

Meanwhile, Swedish justice has opened a prosecution for rape against Julian Assange, who denies aggression.

With AFP