US Ambassador in Ecuador Denies Charges against Assange

The new ambassador of the United States in Ecuador, Adam Namm, denied today in an interview published here there that there are charges against Australian journalist Julian Assange in United States.

"As long as I know, there are no pending charges against Mr. Assange," said Namm to Ecuadorian newspaper El Telegrafo, to which he confirmed that a private process is being followed against US soldier Bradley Maning, accused of espionage and of spreading the secrets reaching Wikileaks.

Few days after the arrival of the US diplomat to Quito last June, Assange asked for political asylum to the Ecuadorian government in the Embassy in London, where he remains awaiting for an answer from this country.

According to the US representative here, the spokesman of the Department of Justice, Dean Boyd, said that an investigation in the WikiLeaks subject and of its proprietors and administrators is followed.

He added that he cannot speak hypothetically on what will happen in the future, but at this moment what it is happening with the order of asylum is a matter to be handled between Ecuador, the United Kingdom and Sweden.

"The United States does not have any intervention in this field," said Namm, and added that "it is something that the government of Ecuador must determine. He requested asylum, not to the United States but to Ecuador."

"I know that Ecuador is analyzing this request and obviously, it is a complicated case, it would be necessary to ask the government," he asserted.

Regarding the judicial process against Maning, whose file would have almost 50,000 pages, the US diplomat said he did not know how the investigation is going on and said that he cannot make any comment out on the report of the official relator of the UN for the torture around the arrest conditions of the soldier.

Nann considered that the revelations done by Wikileaks turned into in a very difficult case for the United States.

"Each government and each company have its own private communication and these cables of WikiLeaks were cables of the government of the United States. Each country, each private company makes the same thing. There are these charges against Bradley Manning, we are going to see what happens."

The Australian journalist, nevertheless, fears to be extradited to US territory because of political crimes and be condemned to the capital punishment for having revealed to the world the hegemonic interests of the US government.

Their doubts would be founded on the fact that the president of the Committee of Intelligence of the US Senate, Dianne Feinstein, demanded that Assange is sanctioned for espionage in the US.