MADRID, April 21 (EUROPEAN PRESS) –

The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, this Thursday received the father and brother of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the National Palace, for whom he has shown his support.

“I accept John and Gabriel Shipton, father and brother respectively, from Julian Assange, whom we will continue to defend, because he is a political prisoner and his case is an unacceptable violation of freedom of expression,” the Mexican president said. via Twitter profile.

Apart from showing his support for Assange, López Obrador has not disclosed the details of the meeting with the family. This is not the first time the Mexican president has met with relatives of a prisoner, who have also supported his release and urged the US government to drop charges against him.

Assange faces 18 criminal charges in the United States and will face espionage charges if he is eventually transferred to the North American country. He faces a total of 175 years in prison, although the US government maintains that he will likely serve between four and six years.

The activist has been imprisoned in the UK since April 2019, when he was arrested after nearly seven years of being held at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The Wikileaks founder initially took refuge in the Embassy to avoid his possible extradition to Sweden, where he is also being investigated, and feared it was a first step toward the United States.