British MPs say WikiLeaks' Assange should face justice in Sweden

British MPs say WikiLeaks' Assange should face justice in Sweden

More than 70 Parliamentarians have signed a letter urging the Government to ensure Julian Assange faces Swedish authorities if they request his extradition.

Labour's Stella Creasy tweeted a copy of the note sent to Sajid Javid. Assange was arrested earlier Thursday at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and the USA has charged him with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer at the Pentagon.

But Ecuador withdrew his asylum status and allowed British police into the embassy on Thursday to arrest the white-bearded Assange.

At the time, Assange said he had had entirely consensual sex with two women while on a trip to Stockholm and that the Swedish claims against him were part of a smear campaign.

The sexual assault claim expired in 2015 and Swedish prosecutors dropped a preliminary investigation into the rape allegation in 2017, arguing that since Assange could not be reached, they could not proceed.

The message, shared on Twitter, reads: "We are writing to request that you do everything you can to champion action that will ensure Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden in the event Sweden make an extradition request".

"This extradition will be very hard to fight - given the nature of the UK-U.S. extradition agreement", Anthony Hanratty from the law firm BDB Pitmans told The Times.

She said she was "disgusted" the American allegation had been "allowed to eclipse" the sex offence case.

His separate extradition case is set to be next heard by video-link at Westminster Magistrates Court on May 2. "This extradition would be wrong so we oppose it".

Aside from an alleged breach of bail - see a timeline of his case here - Assange was arrested in relation to an extradition request from the US.

Referring to Mr Assange, Lord Falconer said: "I don't think politicians should be saying he should or should not be... extradited".

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry tweeted: "Why weren't Swedish authorities told in advance of Assange's ejection from Ecuadorian embassy, as the USA clearly was?" He spent Thursday night in custody and is facing up to 12 months in prison for that conviction.

He tweeted: "The extradition of Julian Assange to the United States for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed by the British government".

Maajid Nawaz calls for Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott to stick with their principles and stop making excuses for Julian Assange by urging the government to block his extradition to the Untied States. This precedent means that any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the United States for having published truthful information about the United States.

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