MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th April, 2019) The founder of the WikiLeaks whistleblowing site, Julian Assange, was arrested in London on Thursday, after Ecuador withdrew his diplomatic asylum.
Assange was arrested inside the Ecuadorian Embassy where he had been residing for several years. Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno confirmed that the country had withdrawn Assange's asylum status over his alleged violations of international conventions.
Journalist Julian Paul Assange became famous in 2006 while working on the WikiLeaks website, established for publishing classified documents. In 2010, the website posted a classified video released by US service personnel and showing a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed at least 18 civilians in Baghdad. The same year, the website also started publishing 250,000 US diplomatic documents.
In August 2010, Assange arrived in Sweden after US authorities began to investigate his activities. While in Sweden, Assange hoped to obtain protection for him and his website.
The same month, the Swedish authorities launched a probe against Assange after two women, aged 25 and 35, told police that they had allegedly been sexually abused by him. Assange denied any complicity in sex-related crimes and insisted that all sexual contacts had taken place through mutual consent alone and that police had motivated the vindictive women to file a complaint against him.
Assange was questioned immediately after the complaint was filed and pleaded not guilty on any sexual abuse charges. A preliminary investigation was stopped but later resumed.
In November 2010, a Stockholm court issued a warrant for Assange's arrest on several counts of rape and sexual crimes. On November 20, Interpol issued an international warrant for his arrest.
On December 7, Assange was arrested by London police after turning himself in.
On December 16, the London-based High Court of Justice released Assange from prison on a 240,000 pound bail ($314,335 at current exchange rates) pending the examination of the Swedish extradition request.
On February 24, 2011, a UK court ruled to extradite Assange to Sweden. The WikiLeaks founder unsuccessfully appealed the decision several times.
On June 19, 2012, media reported that Assange had visited the Embassy of Ecuador in London and requested political asylum from the Ecuadorian authorities for fear of being extradited by the Swedish authorities to the United States in connection with his WikiLeaks activities. Assange has been remaining inside the Embassy of Ecuador since filing his request.
On August 16, 2012, the foreign minister of Ecuador said his country had granted political asylum to Assange. The UK authorities responded that they planned to arrest Assange and to extradite him to Sweden despite this decision. In December 2017, Assange became a citizen of Ecuador.
In September 2014, Assange complained against Sweden and the United Kingdom to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in connection with the decision to detain him.
In February 2016, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Assange's imprisonment unlawful, called for his release and pointed out that he should be reimbursed. The Swedish and UK authorities disagreed with the Group's decision. Assange's legal consultant, Melinda Taylor, said that he would not leave the embassy because the risk of his detention in such conditions was too high.
In August 2015, the Swedish High Prosecutor's Office said three charges against Assange had been dropped due to the expiry of the statute of limitations, and that Assange would still be held suspect on the allegation of a lesser degree rape until August 17, 2020.
Members of Assange's defense team claim that all charges against their client are allegedly politically motivated and had been brought up at the request of certain countries because Assange's activities, including the publication of classified diplomatic correspondence, had drawn the ire of many countries, especially the United States.
In late 2015, Sweden and Ecuador enacted a bilateral legal assistance treaty making it possible to question the WikiLeaks founder at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
On November 14-15, 2016, Assange was questioned by an Ecuadorian lawyer at the Embassy of Ecuador in London, in the presence of a Swedish lawyer. The details of the questioning were not disclosed.
In May 2017, Swedish prosecutors confirmed that rape charges against Assange had been dropped following a seven-year investigation, but the UK police said it would still have to arrest Assange if he stepped out of the embassy. The UK warrant was issued in 2012, after Assange was granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian authorities, thereby breaching his bail conditions.
In February 2018, the Westminster Magistrates' Court upheld the arrest warrant against Assange.
At the end of March 2018, the government of Ecuador said it had switched off Assange's outside communications. According to the Ecuadorian authorities, Assange's behavior and posts in social networks threatened the country's good relations with the United Kingdom, European Union countries and other nations of the world.
In August 2018, new Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno stated that Assange could leave the country's embassy in London at any time if his rights were respected.
On October 13, 2018, a protocol, which defined norms of behavior and communication for Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy, regulated the order of visits, communication with the outside world and provision of medical care to him, was introduced. Assange filed a lawsuit against this decision. In late October, the court refused to satisfy Assange's appeal and in December 2018, the court also rejected Assange's appeal to lift the restrictive measures. In December 2018, Assange said that the embassy, where he was hiding, was being surveilled.
In late October 2018, Assange stated that the Ecuadorian authorities wanted to remove him from the embassy and to hand him over to the United States. According to the whistleblower, they were looking for an excuse to do this.
Assange's lawyer Carlos Poveda said his client was ready to surrender to the UK authorities if they guaranteed that he would not be extradited.
On November 16, 2018, The Wall Street Journal, citing sources in Washington, reported that the US Justice Department was preparing to prosecute the founder of the WikiLeaks website and was confident it would be able to have him extradited to the United States. According to the newspaper, over the past year, prosecutors have discussed a number of possible charges against Assange.
In turn, The Washington Post newspaper, citing court documents, reported that the US Attorney General's Office had already charged Assange.
Previously the US authorities neither confirmed nor denied the existence of any legal claims against Assange, but it was the fear of imprisonment and extradition in the United States that forced the journalist to take refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012.
In January 2019, a US court refused to unseal the substance of criminal charges against Assange.
On January 10, 2019, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Jose Valencia stated that "the most positive option" for Julian Assange would be to surrender to the UK authorities.
On April 2, 2019, Moreno stated that his country was protecting Assange's life, although he had violated the conditions of his stay in the embassy. Moreno also assured that the search for a solution to Assange's problem regarding his stay at the embassy continued and would be found in the near future.
On April 5, 2019, WikiLeaks platform reported that the Ecuadorian government had already allegedly made a deal with the UK authorities that Assange would be arrested. WikiLeaks, citing a government source in Ecuador, announced that Assange would be expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in the coming "hours or days," adding that the Ecuadorian authorities might use a leak in the so-called INA Paper offshore scandal, involving Ecuadorian president, as a pretext to expel Assange.
The INA Paper is a number of documents that were published in February 2019. It is alleged that the INA Paper traced the operations of INA Investment, an offshore company created by President Moreno's brother.
At the end of March, Ecuadorian Communications Minister Andres Michelena told CNN Espanol that the publication was part of a plot that Assange, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa organized to bring down Moreno's government. Assange's lawyer in Ecuador denied his client's involvement in the publication of these documents.
The Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry refused to comment on information about Assange's possible removal from the building of the country's embassy in London, calling such reports "rumors."
