Assange bragging about his role in the Snowden saga to the South China Morning Post:

scmp.com

Assange labelled himself a successful “people smuggler” for helping the whistle-blower escape to Russia via Chek Lap Kok airport on June 23, two weeks after the former CIA analyst first broke cover in Hong Kong.

“Snowden would be very unlikely to have received asylum in Hong Kong for a variety of political and bureaucratic reasons,” Assange told the South China Morning Post yesterday from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been holed up for more than a year to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted on sexual assault allegations.

“We legally analysed his situation … and conveyed to him that very few refugees who applied for asylum in Hong Kong had received it. However, we assessed there was a 65 per cent chance he would win his extradition case … that he would ultimately prevail; that is the nature of the politics of the Hong Kong government and the Chinese politburo.”

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Assange, 42, said Snowden’s choice of Hong Kong was “not what we would have advised” but that “it was definitely one of the most interesting political destinations he could have chosen”.

“Our own political and legal analysis of Snowden’s situation was that Hong Kong would play it by the book,” he said.

This was to keep “its reputation as a country which has a strong rule of law when it is under a lot of scrutiny, a desire to not lose face from China and to not look like the US is pushing them around”.

This approach “would be the best outcome”, but it also meant the 30-year-old whistle-blower would be jailed, Assange said. “Hong Kong’s law is such that during an extradition case there is a presumption against bail, so that while he was running that case, which would have gone for years, he’d have been in prison.”

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“For that period of time, he was the world’s most wanted man by the world’s most powerful government and its full intelligence apparatus,” Assange said.

“So it is a great success story, thanks to those who believed in his human rights and people in Hong Kong who were supportive of that.”

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“It’s very interesting to hear a lot about asylum seekers and to be one yourself,” Assange said.

“And then to be a people smuggler as we have been with a number of individuals who needed protecting including Edward Snowden and his departure from Hong Kong and successful asylum application in Russia.”