French Court rejects Julian Assange's request for asylum

Citing the ruling of the court in France's Creteil commune, French media reported the conditions for restricting Assange's freedom do not allow for an exception to the rule of French law that requires the requester to be in France or the territory of the European Union, Sputnik reported.

In March, the Robin des Lois association requested that France "mobilize all means" and allow Assange to apply for political asylum despite the rule. The association said it had no plans to appeal the court's decision but urged the French Justice Minister and Assange's former lawyer, Eric Dupond-Moretti, to "take up the matter."

In July, lawmakers of France's left-wing alliance of political parties, the New Ecologic and Social People's Union (Nupes), introduced a draft resolution on the need to grant political asylum to Assange.

Assange has spent the past four years at London’s Belmarsh Prison, fighting extradition to the United States on espionage charges for leaking secret US military files that implicate Washington in war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has been in poor health and faces 175 years in jail if found guilty in the US.

MNA/PR