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Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday that he will ask Joe Biden to review the case of Australian journalist Julian Assange, whom U.S. authorities seek to try for the serious revelations of his portal WikiLeaks.
“I want to state that I am going to ask President Biden to address this matter, I am aware that it goes against harsh groups that exist in the United States as in all countries, but humanism must also prevail,” said the president during his morning press conference from the National Palace.
López Obrador said he will make this request during his meeting with Biden next July.
The Mexican president recalled that at the end of the administration of President Donald Trump (2017-2021) he requested the exoneration of the journalist, however, it was not possible.
López Obrador considered Assange to be “the best journalist of our time in the world” and criticized the treatment he received after his arrest.
“He has been very unfairly treated, worse than a criminal, this is a shame for the world the treatment given to this journalist,” he lamented.
Assange, who exposed U.S. abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, is closer to being handed over to U.S. justice after British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed the order for his extradition, although his legal team warned that it will appeal the measure.
The minister signed the order after a British court authorized the surrender of the Australian journalist to be considered by the UK government on April 20.
In that sense, López Obrador said that it was “very disappointing that they are sending him (Assange) to the United States” as he considered that he could end up in jail for life.
He further said that, in case Assange is exonerated, Mexico would be willing to open its doors to him.
The Australian journalist is in custody in a London jail, awaiting his possible extradition to the United States.
Between 2012 and 2019, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, until he was arrested in April of that year on an extradition order from the United States, after the government of that Latin American country withdrew his political asylum status.
