Wikileaks founder Julian Assange runs little risk of being charged in the United States for having published hundreds of thousands of classified documents, The Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials.
Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack noted the report but told AFP on Tuesday that the Justice Department has made no formal statement. Assange “would welcome a formal and unequivocal statement from the Department of Justice that it has not brought charges against him,” Pollack said.
A spokesperson from the Department of Justice declined to comment. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in london since June 2012 to escape extradition to Sweden to face questioning in two sexual assault cases.
He has insisted, however, that he is driven by fear that he will be extradited to the United States to face trial for Wikileaks’ publication of classified US military and diplomatic documents.