Decision to bring new charges is ‘astonishing and abusive’

The decision by the US government to lodge new charges against Julian Assange was slammed as ‘astonishing and potentially abusive’ by the WikiLeaks founder’s lawyer today (fri). Assange, 48, is wanted in the US for allegedly conspiring with army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to expose military secrets between January and May 2010. A US grand jury has indicted him on 18 charges – 17 of which fall under the Espionage Act – including conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified…