Assange likely to avoid espionage charges, but might face computer fraud indictment... [View all]

Published time: November 26, 2013 20:02
Anonymous government officials in the United States say with more certainty than ever that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will not be charged for publishing documents on his anti-secrecy site, but the editor-in-exile isn’t exactly convinced.

For the second time in nearly a week, Washington Post reporter Sari Horwitz wrote on Monday that the odds of Assange being indicted for publishing a trove of sensitive government and military materials have greatly diminished since a grand jury investigation first convened in 2010, once again citing unnamed officials familiar with the probe who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Last Monday, Horwitz reported that federal prosecutors in the US do not have a sealed indictment against Assange, contrary to claims made by the anti-secrecy group’s founder. “Nothing has occurred so far,” a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told the Post. “But it’s subject to change. I can’t predict what’s going to happen. The investigation is ongoing.”

Now one week later, Horwitz has again relied on anonymous officials to make claims that Assange may have escaped the possibility of being charged with espionage for publishing leaked documents, such as those pilfered by Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a 25-year-old soldier sentenced earlier in August to three-and-a-half decades in prison for providing WikiLeaks with classified files.

“The Justice Department has all but concluded it will not bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing classified documents because government lawyers said they could not do so without also prosecuting US news organizations and journalists,” Horwitz wrote in this week’s article, again citing unnamed US officials.

“The officials stressed that a formal decision has not been made, and a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks remains impaneled, but they said there is little possibility of bringing a case against Assange, unless he is implicated in criminal activity other than releasing online top-secret military and diplomatic documents,” she continued.

On Tuesday, the official WikiLeaks Twitter account admitted that the organization was skeptical of the Post’s report and unleashed a barrage of tweets questioning the information in the article, including the paper’s reliance once again on an unnamed official to relay information on behalf of the Department of Justice.


MUCH MORE AT:

http://rt.com/usa/wikileaks-indictment-assange-jury-340/