JULIAN ASSANGE ARRESTED IN LONDON
PHOTO CREDIT:GOOGLE
Police entered the
Ecuadorian embassy in London Thursday morning, arresting Julian Assange and bringing the WikiLeaks founder's seven-year stint there to an end
Metropolitan Police said in a statement that he was "further arrested" on his
arrival at a London police station on behalf of United States authorities, who have
issued an extradition warrant.
.
The UK Home Office also confirmed the
extradition request in a statement, adding, "He is accused in the United States of
America of computer related offences." Assange was initally detained for
"failing to surrender to the court" over a warrant issued in 2012.
Officers made the initial move to arrest
Arrange after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited authorities into the
embassy, citing the Australian's bad behavior.
Assange has been holed up at the embassy,
yards from the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, since 2012, when he
was granted asylum as part of a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he
was facing allegations of sexual assault.
The Swedish case has since been dropped, but
the whistleblower feared US extradition due to his work with WikiLeaks and
remained in the embassy. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno said in a
video statement Thursday that his country withdrew Assange's asylum due to his
"discourteous and aggressive behaviour," "the hostile and threatening
declarations of his allied organisation against Ecuador" and "the
transgression of international treaties."
Assange "violated the norm of not
intervening in internal affairs of other states," Moreno said. "The
most recent incident occurred in January 2019, when WikiLeaks leaked Vatican
documents. Key members of that organisation visited Mr Assange before and after
such illegal acts," he added.
In July 2016, WikiLeaks published nearly
20,000 emails from Democratic National Committee staffers that appeared to show
the committee favoring presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over
Bernie Sanders during the US presidential primary.
Assange then told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the email release was timed to coincide
with the start of the Democratic National Convention.
A US court filing in November 2018 inadvertently revealed US
government efforts to criminally charge Assange.
Alan Duncan, the British Foreign Office's
Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, thanked Ecuador for lifting
Assange's asylum.
"It is absolutely right that Assange will
face justice in the proper way in the UK. It is for the courts to decide what
happens next," Duncan said in a statement.
"We are very grateful to the Government
of Ecuador under President Moreno for the action they have taken," the
statement continued. "Today's events follow extensive dialogue between our
two countries."
On April 4, WikiLeaks tweeted from its verified
account, "BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has
told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within "hours to
days" using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext--and that it
already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest."
In a statement released Friday, Assange's own
legal team said that expelling him from the embassy would "violate
international refugee law."
"It will be a sad day for democracy if
the UK and Ecuadorean governments are willing to act as accomplices to the
Trump administration's determination to prosecute a publisher for publishing
truthful information," the statement read.
The Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry denied the
rumors in a statement, calling them "fake news" and adding that the
allegation of a deal with the UK "misrepresents reality."
In a related issue, multiple sources reveal to
The News office Desk of the E.N.M.Paedia Express Multimedia Group of
Lagos,Nigeria as at press time shows that The media executive have a lot of
facts and figures at his disposal to defend himself
CNN's Milena
Veselinovic, Erin McLaughlin and Hadas Gold and Abdulmumini Adeku ,Lagos,Nigeria contributed
to this report.
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