After the Nobel Foundation decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan Maria Corina Machado, Australian Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks filed a criminal complaint against the organization, alleging that it has turned the award into an “instrument of war.” According to a statement released by Assange, 30 people linked to the Nobel Foundation have committed crimes of gross misappropriation of funds, facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity, and financing the crime of aggression. In the complaint filed with the Swedish Economic Crime Authority and the Swedish War Crimes Unit, Assange names Astrid Soderbergh Widding, executive chair of the Nobel Foundation, and Hanna Stjarne, who serves as the organization's executive director, for turning “an instrument of peace into an instrument of war,” allegedly by authorizing the disbursement of approximately $1.2 million to Machado, who promotes US military intervention in Venezuela. “Machado has continued to incite the Trump Administration to continue down this path.” of escalation.

Using her elevated position as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Machado may well have tipped the scales in favor of war, facilitated by the named suspects,” the 54-year-old programmer and activist asserted.

The complaint warns of the risk that the funds awarded to the Nobel Peace Prize winner could be diverted in a way that indirectly contributes to financing war crimes by the United States, which would violate Sweden's state obligations under the Rome Statute.

Given this scenario, the controversial WikiLeaks founder is asking Swedish authorities to freeze the transfer of the prize money intended for Machado,demand the return of the medal awarded to him a few days ago and investigate the Nobel Foundation for the alleged crimes described. Julian Assange even quoted some words spoken by the Argentine Adolfo Perez Esquivel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980. “Giving the prize to someone who calls for a foreign invasion is a mockery of Alfred Nobel’s will,” he wrote.