Everyone assumes that Assange is an angel, however, he was far from innocent in the downloading and distribution of the classified files (including the coaching Manning on how to download and distribute the files). And while some exposed war crimes others lead to the execution of agents in Russia etc.

If JA had only published the data there would be no case against him. The USA is charging him with being directly involved in the extraction of the files which is a felony with a 30-year sentence attached.

If you or I had engaged in the same criminal, repeat, criminal activities, we would now be cooling our heels in a US federal prison, and deservedly so.

Assange's "torture" was mostly self-inflicted as he sought to escape the Swedish courts for multiple rape charges. For which he served no official time.

Had he manned up he could be now living free and clear in Sweden as a moral man?

He could have flown to Moscow, where his good mate Putin would have put him up in a penthouse and kept the girls coming.

Left to me, I'd have ended his misery with a little lead pill right between the peepers.

This miserable excuse for a human being/bail jumping A-hole, deserves no sympathy, just credit for time served.

His imprisonment in the UK appears very soft with many privileges and almost like a holiday camp.

Should be extradited and serve time in a US federal prison he, could die there along with thousands of others. Rapists, hackers, thieves.

Save your sympathy for someone who has earned it!
Alan B.

'Assange is just as much a political prisoner as Navalny'

Maybe in some respects but completely different in others.
Assange really brought himself the ire of the US leadership when he released the Podesta emails, (which may have cost Hilary and the Democratic Party the election, and the wrath of her, the Democrats, many Republicans as well (uniparty for the Military Industrial Congressional Complex) and the CIA in releasing their 'Vault 7' hacking tools.
- Anything else they accuse him of is politically motivated, a way to punish him for daring to expose these people.
I'm fairly sure off memory that Mike Pompeo even stated that the CIA (which he was head of at the time) had even considered assassinating him.

As for Navalny being a political prisoner there is some truth to that, but there's context too.
Navalny never had the support in Russia we're lead to believe he did.
He was originally poor and broke and got into this timber scheme in Kiril, where loggers were stealing timber under the noses of their employers, Navalny came in and acted as a middleman, ensuring the loggers weren't stealing timber on the side, which was sending the company broke, and he made a chunk of money out of it and there were allegations of wrongdoing by Navalny.
Then, he was convinced by a friend to go to Yale, and it was there he was approached by the CIA and got involved with NGO's and the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) who fund opposition groups to create civil unrest and bring about overthrows in foreign countries.
He went back to Russia with intentions to create civil unrest and undermine the country as an agent of the West, and when he did so Russia was politically motivated to bring up these earlier events in Kiril as a way to put him in jail and stop his efforts to create civil unrest and oust Putin.

- I think this is the basic story anyway...

[Cont.]
Navalny always had more support in the West than he ever did in Russia, and he was a traitor to his own country, but a hero to the West who oppose Putin.

Talk of who killed Navalny....
Well, it's not well publicised that Navalny's wife went to visit him on Feb 14, with 'medicine' and gifts, (while traipsing around with her new boyfriend) and a day later she was at the Munich Security Conference making a big statement about his death.
Some are saying he was killed with Novichuk, but it should also be stated that the West too (including Ukrainians Azov battalion) have access to Novichuk.

You can dig into things and check it all out for yourselves.
I haven't dug too deep into these issues, but this is what I've heard.
Talk it with a pinch of salt if you choose, and do your own research.

Hi AC,

The irony of you remarks is the question of how the west managed to knock off Navalny in a remote Russian arctic prison, yet never got past the conspiracy theories to knock off Mr Shipton. I like Russians. They are a brilliant people and make an enormous contribution to civilisation, but they subjugate themselves to a ruthless psychopath. Such a contradiction!

Maybe Navalny knocked himself off Fester.
- It may not be as far-fetched as it seems.