Rock legend and activist Roger Waters condemns prosecution of Julian Assange

London, January 26 (RHC)-- On Monday, Julian Assange was granted permission to appeal the British High Court’s decision last month to allow his extradition to the U.S., where he is wanted on charges of espionage and revealing state secrets.  The WikiLeaks co-founder faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty on all counts.

Speaking to RT following the court's decision, Roger Waters -- English songwriter, singer, bassist, and composer and co-founder of Pink Floyd -- called the decision a “small victory” in Assange’s years-long legal battle, arguing that he “should not have spent a single day” behind bars.

“How many times do we have to explain this to the rest of the world?  Not only has he committed no crime, but he’s one of the most important human beings on Earth.  Why is that?  Because he’s one of the few proper journalists on Earth,” Waters said.

Under Assange’s helm, WikiLeaks published troves of classified materials related to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 2007 footage of an American military helicopter gunning down civilians in Baghdad.  The organization also published an archive of diplomatic correspondence between the U.S. Department of State and American embassies around the world.

Roger Waters dismissed the prosecution of Assange as a “charade.”  “We should be building statues to Julian Assange in our town squares, not punishing him.  What he has done is expose inconvenient truths,” the co-founder of English rock band Pink Floyd said.

Between 2012 and 2019, Assange took refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was hiding from a sexual assault investigation that was later dropped.  In 2019, he was sentenced to 50 weeks in London’s Belmarsh Prison for skipping bail.  He remains in Belmarsh while fighting his extradition to the United States where he could spend the rest of his life in prison.