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Julian Assange Attorney Says Sealed Indictment ‘More Likely Than Not’

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From Huffington Post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/julian-assange-attorney-indictment_n_3386793.html

06/05/2013

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice has “more likely than not” prepared a sealed indictment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing classified material, his attorney, Michael Ratner, told The Huffington Post.

Assange said the evidence he and his attorneys have gathered leads him to the same conclusion. “The DOJ admitted in March that its investigation against WikiLeaks is ongoing,” Assange told HuffPost, speaking from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been granted asylum. “U.S. officials in the Bradley Manning pre-trial proceedings admitted that the target of the DOJ grand jury is seven civilians, including the founders and managers of WikiLeaks. The [U.S. attorney] responsible is Neil McBride, the [attorney] for the Eastern District of Virginia, where nearly all national security-related prosecutions take place, seven kilometers from the center of D.C.”

Zachary Terwilliger, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney McBride, said, “The investigation is in fact ongoing and we’re not able to comment on an ongoing investigation.”

Assange was referring to recent comments made by prosecutors in the court martial against Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of dumping classified documents to WikiLeaks. The trial phase in Manning’s case began Monday.

“I think it’s more likely than not that there is a sealed indictment against Julian Assange right now,” said Ratner, the head of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The lawyer cited the empaneling of a grand jury in 2010, subpoenas that have been issued, and the number of people associated with WikiLeaks who’ve been contacted by the Justice Department.

“Our contacts with the Department of Justice and the district leave us the impression that there’s a fair possibility that there’s a sealed indictment,” Ratner said. He added that the DOJ has been unresponsive to questions the department normally answers when there is no indictment.

The secrecy surrounding the grand jury investigation of the case had previously been broken. Manning’s friend, David House, was called to testify before the panel last summer and took notes, despite orders not to create a transcript. (His final product, which he posted online, shows prosecutors flummoxed both by his note-taking and his refusal to answer questions.)

The question of whether a sealed indictment against Assange exists is critical to his argument for political asylum. He is fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning related to allegations of sexual assault.

Continue reading at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/julian-assange-attorney-indictment_n_3386793.html



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