GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th April, 2019) Lawyer communities from all over the world are outraged by the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Micol Savia, the permanent representative of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) to the United Nations in Geneva, told Sputnik.
Assange was arrested in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London earlier in the day as Ecuador had withdrawn asylum it had granted to Assange. The UK police confirmed that the arrest had been made "on behalf of the United States authorities."
"We will follow closely all developments. Of course we will issue statements calling on the UK authorities not to extradite Mr. Assange and to protect his fundamental rights. Since his arrest few hours ago I received so many calls from lawyers all around the world asking the same: what can we do? The lawyers' community around the world is outraged by the Ecuadorian decision to withdraw asylum and to hand over Assange to British authorities," Savia said.
The UK court found Assange guilty of breaching bail conditions and kept him in custody. Assange, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty to failure to surrender.
The US Department of Justice said Thursday it was charging Assange with conspiracy related to a 2010 release of stolen documents provided by former US army soldier Chelsea Manning. According to the UK court, the United States has until June 12 to submit all the papers necessary for extradition.
Assange has gained worldwide fame after WikiLeaks released a large number of files, including some on US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other sensitive documents.
Since 2012, Assange had been residing in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced a probe over allegations of sexual offenses. Assange denied those allegations and called them politically motivated. While the Swedish police dropped the investigation in 2017, Assange was still wary of being extradited to the United States.
