Prominent journalist and cyberactivist Julian Assange. Photo: EFE/social media.
In a statement published Wednesday morning by Wikileaks, its founder, Julian Assange, announced that he had filed a criminal complaint in Sweden accusing 30 people associated with the Nobel Foundation, including its directors, of “committing serious suspected crimes, including the crime of misappropriation of funds, facilitation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and financing the crime of aggression” following the awarding of the so-called Nobel Peace Prize to the Venezuelan right winger María Corina Machado.
The complaint, filed simultaneously with the Swedish Economic Crime Authority (Ekobrottsmyndigheten) and the Swedish War Crimes Unit (Krigsbrottsenheten), alleges that the suspects, including Nobel Foundation chair Astrid Söderbergh Widding and executive director Hanna Stjärne, turned “an instrument of peace into an instrument of war.”
In the statement published on Wikileaks, Assange argues that Maria Corina Machado’s past and present actions categorically exclude her from the criteria set out in Alfred Nobel’s will, which explicitly states that the peace prize should be awarded to the individual who during the previous year “has conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.”
On the contrary, Assange argues that “Machado’s incitement of the largest US military reinforcement since the Iraq War makes her categorically ineligible” for the prize. Machado has been front and center in calling for the overthrow of Venezuela’s democratically elected government by any means necessary, including violence, for the better part of three decades.
The Wikileaks statement notes that the Nobel announcement and ceremony took place amid what military analysts describe as “the largest US military deployment in the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” which now exceeds 15,000 troops, including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford.
The escalation continues as President Trump announced on December 10 (two days after the Nobel ceremony) that US attacks would begin on land. The strategy for Venezuela is part of what Trump’s Secretary of War, Peter Hegseth, calls a shift toward “maximum lethality, not lukewarm legality” and toward “going on the offensive.”
Machado has incited the Trump administration to war against Venezuela
In the text, Assange claims that “Machado has continued to urge the Trump administration to continue on its path of escalation” and has gone as far as promising the US administration access to US $1.7 trillion in oil reserves and other natural resources through the privatization of the oil industry once Maduro is overthrown.
“Using her elevated position as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Machado may well have tipped the balance in favor of war, facilitated by the suspects named,” Assange states in the criminal complaint, which includes recent quotes from Machado that, in his view, incite war against Venezuela:
• December 15, 2025, Machado on CBS’s Face the Nation: “I say this from Oslo right now: I have dedicated this award to President Trump because I believe he has finally put Venezuela where it belongs, as a priority for US national security.”
• October 30, 2025, interview with Bloomberg: “Military escalation may be the only way out… The United States may need to intervene directly.”
• October 17, 2025, call to Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s conduct in Gaza: “The Nobel Peace Prize winner told the Prime Minister that she greatly appreciates his decisions and decisive actions during the war.”
• October 2025, interview with Fox News: Machado referred to US military strikes on civilian ships, which have killed at least 95 people to date, as “justified” and “visionary.”
• October 5, 2025, interview in The Sunday Times on the increase in US troops and extrajudicial attacks on civilian vessels: Trump’s attacks are “visionary… I fully support his strategy.”
• February 2025, interview with Donald Trump Jr.: “We are going to drive the government out of the oil sector… American companies are going to make a lot of money… Forget Saudi Arabia, we have more oil.”
• February 9, 2019, interview with El País: Maduro will only leave “in the face of a real threat from a more powerful state,” she claimed.
• February 25, 2014, testimony before the US Congress: “The only path left is the use of force.”
They point out in the text that the Nobel Foundation is guilty of “facilitating war crimes, including the crime of aggression and crimes against humanity, in violation of Sweden’s obligations under Article 25 (3) (c) of the Rome Statute, because the defendants are aware of Machado’s incitement and support for the carrying out of international crimes by the United States and knew or should have known that the disbursement of Nobel money (11 million kronor) would contribute to extrajudicial executions of civilians and shipwrecked persons at sea and are failing to comply with their obligation to cease disbursements.”
In the text, Assange requests the immediate freezing of the monetary prize of 11 million Swedish kronor (equivalent to about US $1.2 million) and any remaining related budget; guarantees of the return of the medal, investigation of the named individuals, officials of the Foundation, and associated entities for breach of trust, facilitation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and conspiracy; seizure of board minutes, emails, group chats, and financial records; questioning of Widding, Stjärne, and other Nobel Prize board members as suspects in the case; and thorough investigation at the national level or referral of the matter to the International Criminal Court.
A post on the social media network X by Wikileaks includes a screenshot of the message posted last night by Donald Trump, on his social media network Truth, announcing a naval blockade against “sanctioned” oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela.
A Unified Venezuela Strongly Condemns US Threat of Blockade, Gains International Backing
About Julian Assange
Julian Assange is an Australian programmer, journalist, and cyberactivist known worldwide as the founder and spokesperson for WikiLeaks, an organization that publishes leaks of classified government and military documents.
WikiLeaks, founded in 2006, gained international fame in 2010 after publishing thousands of classified US documents leaked by former US soldier Chelsea Manning. Among the most notorious materials is the video Collateral Murder, which shows an attack from a US helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 in which civilians and journalists were killed in cold blood.
For 14 years, Assange was subjected to judicial persecution at the hands of the US and its vassals, which forced him to seek asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Under the government of Lenin Moreno, Ecuador withdrew his asylum, and he was arrested by British police and threatened with extradition to the United States, where he could have faced the death penalty for publishing the classified documents.
In June 2024, Assange reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice and was sentenced to time served (the five years he had already spent in British prison). Following the agreement, he was released, and he returned to Australia.
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