WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrested After Ecuador Withdraws Asylum
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has finally been arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Thursday—that's almost seven years after he took refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case.
According to a short note
releasedby London's Metropolitan Police Service, Assange has been arrested immediately after the Ecuadorian government today withdraws asylum.
Assange has now been taken into custody at a central London police station, from where he will be presented before Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as possible.
Assange was wanted by British police for failing to surrender to the Westminster Magistrates' Court in August 2012, while he was under investigation for sexual assault and rape allegations in Sweden.
Although Sweden dropped its preliminary investigation into the rape accusation against Julian Assange in 20117, Assange chose not to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy due to fears of extradition to the United States.
In the United States, Assange is facing federal charges for leaking diplomatic cables and military documents through his popular publication WikiLeaks in 2010 that embarrassed the U.S. governments across the world.
Although U.S. authorities have never officially confirmed the charges against Assange, late last year U.S. prosecutors
accidentally revealed the existenceof criminal charges against Assange in a document filed in an unrelated sex crime case.
Assange, the 47-year-old Australian hacker, founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and has since made many high-profile revelations through the platform, exposing 'dirty' secrets of several political parties, individuals, and government organizations across the world.
Assange has been forced to live in London's Ecuadorian Embassy since June 2012, when a U.K. court ordered his extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault and rape charges filed against him.
However, his relationship with Ecuador has deteriorated in the past year. The country
cut him off the Internetsince March 2018 after he breached its agreement to refrain from interfering in other states' affairs that could affect the country's relationship with other nations.
The circumstances even made it difficult for Assange to do his job of editor-in-chief to run WikiLeaks and forced the whistleblower organization to
appoint its new editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson.
In July last year, the Ecuadorian President also reportedly visited London to finalize a deal with UK government to
withdraw Assange's asylum protection—eventually turning him over to Britain where he is facing an arrest warrant after skipping a bail payment.
The story is developing....
