British police arrested Julian Assange after Ecuador withdrew asylum. The arrest was carried out at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the founder of WikiLeaks has been granted asylum since 2012. Assange was taken out of the embassy among the shouts: "The UK must resist. This is a move of the Trump administration " . The activist has been taken into custody by the London police and will be heard by the Westminster court where he can defend himself.
The police confirmed that Assange was "further arrested" on behalf of the American authorities on the basis of an extradition warrant. Although he was already detained in a state of arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy, in other words, he was picked up by the British police for trial. The news was expected since last year the President of Ecuador declared that he was in talks with the British authorities to end the activist and IT asylum. Last October the embassy had forced him to more restrictive rules, including the prohibition of using internal Wi-Fi to avoid political interference.
He has since been replaced by Kristinn Hrafnsson on the WikiLeaks portal. Julian Assange was celebrated in 2010 after publishing a series of confidential American documents obtained by Chelsea Manning, formerly an intelligence analyst with the US military. The founder of WikiLeaks then obtained asylum in Ecuador in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual violence . Assange was also accused of helping Russia in the 2016 US presidential election, publishing nearly 20,000 emails stolen from the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. In that case, twelve Russian intelligence officers were arrested, one of whom was in contact with the WikiLeaks activist.
Last November it also emerged that Assange was accused of publishing confidential documents from the US Department of Justice following what appears to be a copy and paste error committed in judicial documentation unrelated to the facts. Last week WikiLeaks had anticipated that it had learned from an internal source in the Ecuadorian government that Assange was about to be expelled from the embassy within "hours or days". The foreign minister of the African nation then denied the reports.
Shortly after the arrest Lenín Moreno , President of Ecuador, published a video on Twitter in which he stated that, although the nation respects the right to asylum, "the rude and aggressive behavior of Julian Assange, the hostile and threatening statements of its allied organization against Ecuador and, in particular, the transgression of international treaties " , have meant that the activist's asylum becomes " no longer sustainable and practicable " . In particular, Moreno refers to the statements on "internal affairs of other states".
In 2019 WikiLeaks had also published a collection of confidential Vatican documents, and this suggests that Assange was still involved in WikiLeaks. In addition to interference in the internal affairs of other countries, the President of Ecuador indicated that Assange had blocked the security cameras inside the embassy, mistreated the guards and even gained access to the files without having received permission . However, in order for the end of the asylum to be granted, Moreno made sure that Assange was not extradited to a country that accepts torture or the death penalty, requesting a written confirmation from the British authorities.