Julian Assange: Edward Snowden Is 'Safe And Healthy'

[Wake]

Julian Assange said on Monday that Edward Snowden is "safe and healthy" and in high spirits, but refused to reveal further details about the National Security Agency leaker's current location.

Assange's conference call with reporters offered the clearest indication yet that Snowden's fate is bound up with the assistance he receives from WikiLeaks, the noted transparency organization that came to its greatest fame three years ago when it released a massive cache of documents from Army Pfc. Bradley Manning.

Assange said that WikiLeaks paid for Snowden's flight from Hong Kong to Russia on Sunday and that "there was no advanced communication with Russian officials prior to his departure from Hong Kong." Claims that Snowden has been debriefed by Russian intelligence agencies are false, Assange said.

Julian Assange: Edward Snowden Is 'Safe And Healthy'

This is good, if true.

It's less likely that our corrupt government will "quiet" him.

 

[waltky]

Mebbe he got bone cancer...

Julian Assange Cannot Leave the Ecuadorean Embassy for Medical Treatment, U.K. Says
15 Oct.`15 - The 44-year-old had asked for safe passage to get treatment for a sore shoulder

The U.K. has refused a request for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to leave the Ecuadorean embassy in London to receive medical treatment for a shoulder injury, the South American country said Wednesday. British authorities denied “safe passage” to Assange to get an MRI scan to investigate a three-month-long “deep pain” in his right shoulder, Reuters quoted Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino as saying. “The British government is not allowing the terms to make this happen,” Patino told reporters. “This is a person who needs to have exams done to understand the situation given it is grave,” he added.

Assange, 44, has been sheltered by Ecuador at its London embassy since June 2012, when he sought protection in order to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face charges of rape. He has denied the allegations and expressed concern that the prosecution is a ruse that will see him eventually extradited to the U.S., where he may be prosecuted for WikiLeaks’ release of classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010. The British government has accused Ecuador of obstructing justice by harboring Assange at its embassy, and on Monday reiterated its “deep frustration at the protracted delay” in prosecuting him, the U.K. Foreign Office said.

Patino said the inability to guarantee the Australian WikiLeaks founder safety even for medical treatment is “an additional fault in his protection.” “We don’t know what he may have, and they don’t want to give an authorization that they can perfectly well give,” he said.

Julian Assange Cannot Get Scan on Hurt Shoulder, U.K. Says