French National Assembly Rejects Draft Resolution on Call for Political Asylum for Assange

PARIS (Sputnik) - The French National Assembly has rejected the draft resolution with a call on the country's government to provide political asylum for the founder of the WikiLeaks whistleblowing website, Julian Assange.

The draft resolution was supported on Friday by 17 lawmakers and opposed by 31 ones.

On 10 December 2021, the London High Court ruled in favour of the US appeal to extradite Assange, overturning an earlier decision that the Australian journalist cannot be extradited to the US due to health issues and the inhumane conditions he might face in the US prison system.

The WikiLeaks founder has been on remand at the Belmarsh maximum-security prison in southeast London since October 2020, after serving an 11-month sentence for breaking bail conditions. In 2012, instead of appearing in court as his bail conditions demanded, Assange sought shelter in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he remained until 2019 over concerns that he might otherwise end up extradited to the US.

Assange is wanted by the United States on espionage charges after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified documents that shed light on the atrocities committed by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. If put on trial and convicted in the US, Assange may be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.