Brazil’s Lula da Silva says Assange deserves freedom, Oscar and Nobel Prize

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from the leftist Worker’s party PT defended Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, whose extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States has moved closer after the British government approved the procedure.

Australian Assange is accused of violating the U.S. Espionage Act. His website Wikileaks has published information from U.S. diplomatic and military operations.

The leaks exposed human rights abuses and spying on other countries’ heads of state. If tried in this country, he could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.

(Julian’s wife Stella Morris Assange comments on extradition proceedings to the US.)

Assange has been in prison since April 2019. He was previously housed in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London until the Latin American country’s government expelled him from there.

“We who are talking about democracy here must ask ourselves what crime Assange committed,” Lula da Silva stated. According to the former president, the crime was, to tell the truth.

“To show that the United States wiretapped many countries in the world, including President Dilma Rousseff,” Lula da Silva said. “He denounced the frauds committed in the most important country in the world,” the petista explained.

“This citizen should receive a Nobel Prize, an Oscar for decency and courage, for denouncing to the world a country that spies on another country,” Lula da Silva said.

According to the former president, global pressure is needed “so that this man is released.”

The leftist presidential candidate explained that Assange “will certainly die in prison” in the United States.

“If anyone has committed a crime, it is the one who spied on planet Earth on behalf of the United States,” Lula da Silva said.

In 2013, former NSA employee Edward Snowden revealed leaked documents that Rousseff, Angela Merkel, and other world leaders had been spied on.

That incident led to tensions between the Brazilian government and the United States. At the time, Rousseff canceled a planned visit to Washington, a gesture considered strong in diplomacy.

“And the United States still had the courage to apologize to Angela Merkel, but they didn’t have the courage or didn’t think it was necessary to apologize to Brazil,” Lula da Silva said.

The former president made his remarks at a pre-election event in Maceió (AL).