The US justice department has filed 17 new charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who is facing extradition from the UK.
The latest charges accuse him of receiving and unlawfully publishing
the names of classified sources. He was previously charged last month on
one count of conspiring with ex-intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to the Pentagon network.
Assange is serving a jail sentence in the UK for breaching bail
conditions. The 47-year-old was found guilty last month after his arrest
at the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he had sought refuge since 2012 over
sexual assault allegations in Sweden.
The new indictment says Assange conspired with Manning in order to
obtain and disclose secret US files and also exposed and endangered
confidential sources in the Middle East and China.
Wikileaks hit back after the announcement, tweeting: "This is
madness. It is the end of national security journalism and the first
amendment [to the US Constitution]." Manning was found guilty in 2013
of charges including espionage for leaking secret military files to
Wikileaks, but her 35-year sentence was commuted by then-President
Barack Obama.
No comments:
Post a Comment