By Philip Dorling
FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr is confident the US will not seek to extradite Julian Assange, but his department has delayed and blocked the release of documents that would show what the government knows about the US espionage investigation into the WikiLeaks publisher.
Senator Carr yesterday argued that the US failure to make an extradition request to Britain over the past two years showed the Obama government had given up its pursuit of Mr Assange for releasing hundreds of thousands of classified US military and diplomatic reports.
Julian Assange.Credit: AFP
''I'm not surprised that the Justice Department is not declaring the case closed,'' Senator Carr said yesterday. ''But if this were a priority for the [Obama] administration you would have seen legal action when very easily, very readily they would have been in a position to have taken it.''
Senator Carr was being questioned about renewed calls by the chairwoman of the US Senate intelligence oversight committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, for Mr Assange to be prosecuted for espionage.
''All the indications I've picked up from the public statements of US officials including the American ambassador in Australia is that they are a long way from having made a decision about this'', Senator Carr said. ''I'd be surprised if they were to pursue it … I am simply not persuaded that this is something actively engaging the Americans.''
Mr Assange sought political asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London on June 19 and has defied a British police order to turn himself in for extradition to Sweden where he is sought for questioning in relation to sexual assault allegations.
Mr Assange fears a hostile political climate in Sweden will facilitate his ultimate extradition to the US.