American actress Pamela Anderson has said it was “very difficult” to see her friend and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a high-security prison.
The former Baywatch star was accompanied on the visit to Belmarsh prison in south east London by WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson.
“I love him, I can’t imagine what he has been going through,” she said. “He does not deserve to be in a supermax prison. He has never committed a violent act. He is an innocent person.”
Anderson met Assange a number of times when he was at the Ecuadorian embassy in London before he was removed last month and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for a bail violation. He is fighting extradition to the United States, which accuses him of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer.
She said: “It is going to be a long fight and he deserves our support. He needs our support, so whatever anyone can do – maybe write to him, encourage him. We just have to keep fighting, because it is unfair. He has sacrificed so much to bring the truth out and we deserve the truth.”
She said he has no access to information, is “really cut off from everybody” and has not been able to speak to his children. After what he called their “first social visit”, Mr Hrafnsson said they were “both quite emotional”, adding that it was shocking to see his friend, a journalist and an intellectual, “sitting in a high-security prison”. He said: “This is not justice. This is an abomination.”
Assange spent nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in central London. He sought refuge there to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning over sex assault allegations.
Photo Credit: Getty
