It’s a bit dishonest to claim he’s been imprisoned without a trial when he skipped on bail in 2012 and chose to stay in an embassy instead of turn himself in to the UK government.
He was arrested in 2019 and promptly convicted of skipping on bail in the same year by the UK government.
from https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/02/521632-wikileaks-founde...
> The founder of the WikiLeaks website, which published confidential diplomatic information, has been arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the United Kingdom since his arrest in London in December 2010, as a result of the legal action against him by both Governments, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said today.
Skipping bail to seek asylum in a country that will attempt to preserve your human rights, when not skipping bail means you get extradited to a country that will torture you via extended solitary confinement prior to trial is not what most people mean when they use the phrase "skipping bail". If any description is dishonest here, it's that.
A sham trial that you get tortured before getting to attend is always something to be avoided. Let's not forget that Manning was tortured to the point of multiple suicide attempts in prison prior to trial, as well as being declared guilty in public by a sitting US president (also before trial).
Several senior officials in the US government called for Assange's summary execution for publishing. There is approximately zero chance that he will receive a fair trial or humane treatment in the USA.
On plenty of occasions, the UK has demonstrated its willingness to not extradite suspects to the US out of concern for their welfare.
> declared guilty in public by a sitting US president (also before trial)
Because the US has not yet fallen under authoritarian rule and has an independent judiciary, it's possible to have a fair trial even when the president offers an opinion about the case. But offering such opinions is frowned upon because it's bad optics. Before you bring up tainting the jury pool, an upside to the lack of civic engagement amongst Americans is it's not difficult to find people who won't have heard a president's or anyone else's opinions.
An extradition request which has so far been denied, in part due to the conditions he will face in the US, FWIW. I'm not sure that it can be taken as given that an earlier request (to the UK or Sweden) would have been successful:
> Faced with conditions of near total isolation and without the protective factors which moderate his risk at HMP Belmarsh, I am satisfied that the procedures described by Dr. Leukefled[sic][1] will not prevent Mr. Assange from finding a way to commit suicide. [...] I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate causing him to commit suicide with the "single minded determination" of his autism spectrum disorder. I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America.[2]
[1] "[Dr. Leukefeld] is a psychologist employed as the administrator of the psychology services branch in the central office of the [Bureau of Prisons]" ([2] at 350)
[2] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/USA-v-As... at 361-363
It's very hard to make a case that this isn't arbitrary detention at this point.
They have already done a great job turning public opinion against him, though: the completely false claim that he was charged with rape is widely believed and repeated. Anyone who has fallen for this false narrative is encouraged to read the exact words of the women involved.
He has also been effectively imprisoned without trial for about a decade now.
Mostly he just serves as an example to what happens to people extrajudicially for fucking in any way with the US surveillance state and war apparatus.