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German MP Sevim Dagdelen to visit Julian Assange in London

31 August 2012 20:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. German lawmaker Sevim Dagdelen will visit Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Sunday and try to help find a diplomatic solution to end the dispute around the WikiLeaks founder, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Dagdelen, member of the German Bundestag and member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the lower house, will talk to Assange about the current situation, and seek to help find ways out of the diplomatic crisis, the MP’s office said on Friday.

Speaking about the trip, Dagdelen, who is also the spokeswoman on international relations for the Left Party parliamentary group, said she was looking forward to meeting Julian Assange.

"People everywhere owe a debt to Mr. Assange and courageous whistleblowers like U.S. Private Bradley Manning for making secret information available to the public," she said.

"I welcome the publication of the secret U.S. documents that revealed the war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I therefore strongly support the nomination of courageous whistleblowers like Private Bradley Manning and Julian Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize," she said.

Dagdelen also said she saw her visit as a response to German Federal Government’s decision to side entirely with the British government.

"I believe that those who commit and are responsible for war crimes should be tried - not those who expose them. I was dismayed to hear that the British authorities were threatening to enter the Ecuadorian embassy, if necessary by force, to arrest Mr Assange," Dagdelen said.

"Disregard for freedom of opinion and of the press is worrying enough. But now we are even facing the possibility of an international conflict with several Latin American countries," The MP said, adding that she will try to find a diplomatic solution that "respects human rights" to the situation.

Assange has been taking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June to avoid his extradition to Sweden, and was granted political asylum by Ecuador two months later. However, Britain refused to recognize the asylum and denied Assange safe passage out of the country.

The 41-year-old Australian claimed that Sweden intends to hand him over to the United States, where he may face espionage charges for leaking thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables and, if convicted, could be given the death penalty.

Britain was also accused by Ecuador of threatening to storm its embassy to arrest Assange. The Organization of American States last Friday threw its weight behind Ecuador by affirming the inviolability of its diplomatic premises.