It appears that the sleazebags at the FBI are worried that the U.S. case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who’s been imprisoned at London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019, isn’t as strong as thought. Assange’s lawyers and family members now suspect that the FBI is digging around for new evidence and that U.S. prosecutors might be planning a new indictment or a superseding indictment against Assange, according to the Australian dailies The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Last week, the FBI requested an interview with well-known Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan, who worked as a ghostwriter for Assange’s autobiography over a decade ago but had a public falling out with him and subsequently publicly attacked him in a 2014 essay in the London Review of Books. O’Hagan, however, declined the FBI’s request to meet “voluntarily,” stating, “I would not give a witness statement against a fellow journalist being pursued for telling the truth.”
It has been three years since U.S. prosecutors issued an indictment against Assange, and his lawyers didn’t think there was even an active investigation underway. Stephen Kenney, Assange’s Australian lawyer, remarked that “it appears they are continuing to try to investigate, which I find unusual, given the amount of time that has passed since the investigation began.”
This occurs at a time of growing optimism about the possibility of Assange being released, as a result of tremendous international pressure and mobilizations that have grown over the past year, including a strong statement from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who recently said that Assange’s incarceration “wasn’t worth it,” and should be ended. Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton, told the Sydney Morning Herald, that indications of a new investigation “shows they understand how weak the charges against Julian are and are trying to strengthen them.”
