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Fabien Hisbacq
Published on
June 25, 2024 at 5:46 p.m.
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Even if some didn’t believe it, the threat was real. A Russian artist had declared his intention to destroy in the Hautes-Pyrénées several priceless masterpieces. Des Rembrandt, Picasso, Warhol… Unless Julian Assange was released!
Or, the founder of Wikileaks, prosecuted for exposing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents, was “released”. He was able to leave the United Kingdom after a long legal tussle.
He risked 175 years in prison, but that’s not all…
He was detained for several years in the United Kingdom. The United States demanded his extradition. And over there, the famous whistleblower at the origin in 2010 of revelations on the way in which the United States and its allies led the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, is accused of espionage. If he had been tried on American soil, he risked 175 years in prison.
This will not be the case, the 52-year-old Australian must appear this Wednesday, June 26 at 9 a.m. local (Tuesday 11 p.m. GMT) in a federal court in the Mariana Islands, a US Pacific territory, according to court documents made public on the night of Monday to Tuesday.
In a trunk in Maubourguet
However, far from there, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, a very famous Russian dissident artist threatened to destroy several paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso and even Warhol.
The artist in question is Andrey Molodkin. Born in 1966 in the north of Russia, a decade ago he bought the Fabre foundry in Maubourguet and made it a experimental art center. A place of exhibition but also of welcoming international artists in resistance, called The Foundry.
$45 million in market value
And it is here that Andrei Molodkin said he was locked in a huge trunk of 29 tonnes 16 masterpieces with a market value of around $45 million. To destroy them in the event of extradition of Julian Assange to the United States.
The trunk also housed two barrels. One with acid and the other filled with an accelerator product. Connected to a pump. If the system had been activated, the contents of the trunk would have been destroyed in two hours.
A role in his release?
A device designed as an artistic performance called « Dead Man’s Switch ». “I’m not trying to destroy art, and I don’t think I will have to,” the artist declared a few months ago to Guardian. While the prisoner’s wife, Stella Assange, which supported this initiative, asked in a press release: “Which is the greater taboo: destroying art or destroying human life? “.
The Russian artist confirmed Tuesday June 25, 2024 to the British channel Sky News that the paintings would not be destroyed. And Andreï Molodkin, who lives in Maubourguet, even considered that his threat had played a role in the release of Julian Assange. “Destroying art is more taboo than destroying human life,” did he declare. Adding that he was going to deactivate the system to make sure there was “no accident”.
Assange soon in the Pyrenees?
But he won’t open the trunk. Because Julian Assange would like to do it himself, he assures.
The works will be returned to their owners in the coming months. Italian art gallery owner Giampaolo Abbondio told Sky News that he had provided Picasso’s work for the vault and that he had signed a confidentiality agreement preventing him from revealing which one. “He is very, very happy” to recover this painting, assures Andreï Molodkin. We do want to believe it.
In any case, Julian Assange could therefore come to the Hautes-Pyrénées in the coming months (if justice authorizes him) in order to open the safe himself.
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