United Nations: Targeting Wikileaks Founder With Drone Strike Criminal Violation of Human Rights

Targeting or “taking out” Wikileaks founder Julian Assange via military drone strike would be a criminal violation of international human rights laws, a United Nations envoy said Monday.

“A State could theoretically seek to justify the use of drones by invoking the right to anticipatory self-defence against a non-state actor and by arguing that it had no means to capture their targets or cause another state to capture the target,” said Dr. Agnes Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions during an interview with True Pundit. “To do so, the State would have to demonstrate an ‘instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment of deliberation’ necessity. This is not only a very high threshold to meet; it is also impossible to see how this could be used or justified in the case of Mr. Julian Assange.”

Dr. Callamard’s statements come on the heels of a scathing published account by True Pundit detailing that in 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly asked top aides if it was possible to use a drone strike against Assange. Dr. Callamard said she had no knowledge of the assertions contained in the True Pundit story regarding the State Department.