U.S. charges Assange after London arrest ends seven years in Ecuador embassy

[webfact]

U.S. charges Assange after London arrest ends seven years in Ecuador embassy

By Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Costas Pitas

 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Westminster Magistrates Court, after he was arrested in London, Britain April 11, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

 

LONDON (Reuters) - British police dragged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of Ecuador's embassy on Thursday after his seven-year asylum was revoked, paving the way for his extradition to the United States for one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information.

 

Hours after the frail-looking Assange, with white hair and a long beard, was carried head-first by at least seven men out of the London embassy and into a waiting police van, U.S. officials announced he had been charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

 

As he was being hauled out of the embassy in a dramatic scene shortly after 0900 GMT after Ecuador terminated his asylum, the Australian-born Assange was heard shouting, "This is unlawful, I'm not leaving."

 

British Prime Minister Theresa May hailed the news in parliament, to cheers and cries of "Hear, hear!" from lawmakers.

 

But in Washington, President Donald Trump, who in 2016 said "I love WikiLeaks" after the website released emails that U.S. authorities have said were hacked by Russia to harm his election opponent Hillary Clinton, told reporters he had no opinion on the charges against Assange.

 

"I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing," Trump said.

 

Assange gave a thumbs up in handcuffs as he was taken from a police station to a London court, where he pronounced himself not guilty of failing to surrender in 2012.

 

Judge Michael Snow called Assange, wearing a black jacket and black shirt, a "narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests" and convicted him of skipping bail. Sentencing will be at a later date.

 

Police said they arrested Assange, 47, after being invited into the embassy following Ecuador's withdrawal of asylum. He took refuge there in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault investigation that was later dropped.

 

Assange was carried out of the building - located behind the luxury department store Harrods - carrying a copy of Gore Vidal's "History of The National Security State", which he continued reading in court.

 

In Washington, the U.S. Justice Department said Assange was charged with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of a 2010 leak by WikiLeaks of hundreds of thousands of U.S. military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and American diplomatic communications. Legal experts said more U.S. charges could be coming.

 

The indictment was made secretly in March 2018 and unsealed on Thursday. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted, with legal experts saying more charges were possible.

 

Ecuador suspended Julian Assange's citizenship and accused him and others at WikiLeaks of collaborating in attempts to destabilise the Andean nation's government.

 

FRICTION WITH ECUADOR

Assange was offered refuge in 2012 by Ecuador's then-president Rafael Correa, but his relationship with Ecuador soured under Correa's successor Lenin Moreno, who has said Assange violated the terms of his asylum. Ecuador accused Assange of leaking information about Moreno's personal life.

 

Lawyers for Assange said he may risk torture and his life would be in danger if he were to be extradited to the United States.

 

The arrest, after years holed up in a few cramped rooms at the embassy, represented one of the most sensational turns in a tumultuous life that has transformed the computer programmer into a fugitive wanted by the United States.

 

"The whole House will welcome the news this morning that the Metropolitan Police have arrested Julian Assange, arrested for breach of bail after nearly seven years in the Ecuadorean embassy," May said.

 

Ecuador's foreign minister said his country was not aware of any active extradition requests for Assange before it terminated his asylum. Supporters of Assange said Ecuador had betrayed him at the behest of Washington, illegally ended his asylum and engineered a dark moment for press freedom.

 

"Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges," Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange, said in a statement reacting to the U.S. indictment.

 

His admirers have hailed Assange as a hero for exposing what they describe as abuse of power by modern states and for championing free speech. His detractors have painted him as a dangerous figure complicit in Russian efforts to undermine the West and U.S. security, and dispute that he is a journalist.

 

"Under the guise of transparency, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have effectively acted as an arm of the Russian intelligence services for years," U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, said. "Hopefully, he will now face justice."

 

The Kremlin said it hoped Assange's rights would not be violated.

 

WikiLeaks angered Washington by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that laid bare critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

 

Assange made international headlines in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.

 

U.S. INVESTIGATION

Assange's U.S. indictment arose from a long-running criminal investigation dating back to the administration of former President Barack Obama. It was triggered in part by WikiLeaks' publication in 2010 of U.S. military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the diplomatic communications - disclosures that embarrassed the United States and strained relations with allies.

 

The Justice Department said Assange was arrested under an extradition treaty between the United States and Britain.

 

The indictment said Assange in March 2010 engaged in a conspiracy to assist Manning, formerly named Bradley Manning, in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications.

 

Manning's lawyers demanded the release of the former intelligence analyst, jailed last month after being held in contempt by a judge in Virginia for refusing to testify before a grand jury, and said "continued detention would be purely punitive."

 

A Swedish lawyer representing the alleged rape victim said she would push to have prosecutors reopen the case, but a retired senior prosecutor and chairman of NGO Victim Support Sweden said that may be difficult.

 

Britain said no person was above the law.

 

"Julian Assange is no hero, he has hidden from the truth for years and years," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said.

 

"It's not so much Julian Assange being held hostage in the Ecuadorean embassy, it's actually Julian Assange holding the Ecuadorean embassy hostage in a situation that was absolutely intolerable for them."

 

Friends of Assange said his solitary existence in the embassy was tough on him.

 

"It was a miserable existence and I could see it was a strain on him, but a strain he managed rather well," said Vaughan Smith, a friend who had visited Assange. "The thing that was most difficult for Julian was the solitude."

 

"He was very tough, but the last year in particular was very difficult. He was constantly being surveilled and spied upon. There was no privacy for him," Smith said.

 

Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006. The website published secret official information, infuriating the United States and other countries. WikiLeaks said Ecuador had illegally terminated his political asylum in violation of international law.

 

"Assange's critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom," said Edward Snowden, a former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who fled to Moscow after revealing massive U.S. intelligence gathering.

 

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Costas Pitas; Additional reporting by Alistair Smout, Andrew MacAskill, Henry Nicholls, Peter Nicholls, Dylan Martinez in London; Anna Ringstrom, Simon Johnson and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Mark Hosenball, Sarah N. Lynch and Makini Brice in Washington; Nathan Layne in New York; Sabela Ojea in Madrid; Alexandra Valencia in Quito; and Julia Cobb and Helen Murphy in Bogota; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Will Dunham; Editing by Hugh Lawson,; Alistair Bell and Grant McCool)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-04-12

[darksidedog]

Whatever you think of the man himself, this is a very dark day for freedom of speech. What is the next person going to do when they discover that their government has been up to all sort of foul play? Make it public and risk going to jail, or keep their mouth shut and let atrocities continue?

[Tug]

5 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

Whatever you think of the man himself, this is a very dark day for freedom of speech. What is the next person going to do when they discover that their government has been up to all sort of foul play? Make it public and risk going to jail, or keep their mouth shut and let atrocities continue?

I think you have your answere now with what is happening with Donald’s revenge tactics 

[mike787]

He's a terd...life still goes on with or without him...a waste of time.

[55Jay]

Still conflicted about him, and Manning.  The reveal was important, but not at any cost.  Same with Trump and the method being attempted currently to oust him from elected office. The ends don't justify the means. 

[Topdoc]

36 minutes ago, webfact said:

a "narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests"

"a bunch of narcissists who cannot get beyond their own selfish interests"

could be a good way to describe the political class in the UK at the moment

[JimmyJ]

"How You Can Be Certain That The US Charge Against Assange Is Fraudulent"

 

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-you-can-be-certain-that-the-us-charge-against-assange-is-fraudulent-8eb0caa1c4f6

 

 

"This charge is premised on a fraudulent and manipulative distortion of reality, and you may be one hundred percent certain of it. Let me explain."

[JimmyJ]

56 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

Whatever you think of the man himself, this is a very dark day for freedom of speech. What is the next person going to do when they discover that their government has been up to all sort of foul play? Make it public and risk going to jail, or keep their mouth shut and let atrocities continue?

Exactly.

 

Free speech does not mean "Speech I agree with and people I personally like should have the right to free speech".

Free speech means the right for people one dislikes and points of view one disagrees with to be spoken.

 

The New York Times and The Washington Post constantly publish leaked (from "unnamed sources") info.

They also - like most publications and TV news shows in the world - have repeated Wikileaks releases.

Should those papers be closed and their publishers go to jail, because an anonymous poster on TVF doesn't like them?

What possible relevance would this person's opinion of someone's personality have?

It is totally off topic and strawman.

Edited April 12, 2019 by JimmyJ

[JimmyJ]

"The arrest of #JulianAssange is meant to send a message to all Americans and journalists: be quiet, behave, toe the line. Or you will pay the price."

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 11, 2019

And that is regardless of the journalist's nationality and regardless of the country the journalist is residing in.

[dick dasterdly]

It was obvious that this was going to happen, even though the authorities kept pretending otherwise.

 

As Assange said, "Told you so".

[cleopatra2]

29 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

Exactly.

 

Free speech does not mean "Speech I agree with and people I personally like should have the right to free speech".

Free speech means the right for people one dislikes and points of view one disagrees with to be spoken.

 

The New York Times and The Washington Post constantly publish leaked (from "unnamed sources") info.

They also - like most publications and TV news shows in the world - have repeated Wikileaks releases.

Should those papers be closed and their publishers go to jail, because an anonymous poster on TVF doesn't like them?

What possible relevance would this person's opinion of someone's personality have?

It is totally off topic and strawman.

Publications dont solicit the information, or conspire to commit an unlawful act to obtain information.

Should the UK have not prosecuted the phone hacking scandal on the premise of free speech.

[Chomper Higgot]

10 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

It was obvious that this was going to happen, even though the authorities kept pretending otherwise.

 

As Assange said, "Told you so".

Yep, he’s wasted the best years of his life in a futile effort to avoid being held responsible for his own actions.

 

 

[cleopatra2]

11 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

It was obvious that this was going to happen, even though the authorities kept pretending otherwise.

 

As Assange said, "Told you so".

There was no US extradition request when Assange sought refuge in the embassy skipping bail.

Obama decided not to pursue the leak .

[bristolboy]

29 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Yep, he’s wasted the best years of his life in a futile effort to avoid being held responsible for his own actions.

 

 

As things now stand, the only charge the US governmet has lodged against him is for offering to assist Chelsea Manning. Not for actually assisting him. More charges may follow but for now, not.

[Chomper Higgot]

6 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

As things now stand, the only charge the US governmet has lodged against him is for offering to assist Chelsea Manning. Not for actually assisting him. More charges may follow but for now, not.

It’s called conspiracy.

 

And here’s a legal fact, no matter what crime, conspiracy to vomit that crime is as severely punished, often more severely punished than committing the crime itself.

[bristolboy]

Just now, Chomper Higgot said:

It’s called conspiracy.

 

And here’s a legal fact, no matter what crime, conspiracy to vomit that crime is as severely punished, often more severely punished than committing the crime itself.

If he actually didn't provide help but only offered to, I don't know that would qualify as conspiracy.

[dick dasterdly]

"a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests"

 

Clearly an unbiased judge! ????

[dick dasterdly]

42 minutes ago, cleopatra2 said:

There was no US extradition request when Assange sought refuge in the embassy skipping bail.

Obama decided not to pursue the leak .

So it was trump that decided to pursue Asssange?

[JustAnotherHun]

38 minutes ago, cleopatra2 said:

There was no US extradition request when Assange sought refuge in the embassy skipping bail.

Obama decided not to pursue the leak .

There was no such decision by Obama.

So why did the swedish government refuse to give a warranty he would not be extradited to US when Assange was in London?

Without Wikileaks and Assange the world would know far less about US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraque.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 minute ago, dick dasterdly said:

So it was trump that decided to pursue Asssange?

I doubt very much Trump wants Assange sitting in front of US prosecutors or giving evidence in a YS court.

 

Trump has in the past 24 hours claimed he knows nothing about Wikileaks. Odd that given the recorded public comments he has previously made.

[cleopatra2]

2 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

So it was trump that decided to pursue Asssange?

The indictment is dated 2018 March

[Chomper Higgot]

2 minutes ago, JustAnotherHun said:

There was no such decision by Obama.

So why did the swedish government refuse to give a warranty he would not be extradited to US when Assange was in London?

Without Wikileaks and Assange the world would know far less about US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraque.

Why did the Swedish authorities not agree to Assange’s demands that he should be exempt from the laws of extradition?

 

Do you really need that explaining to you?!

[bristolboy]

There's a great article by Alan Rushbridge, an editor at the Guardian, who was enlisted by Assange to help him. It makes for eye-popping reading.

https://lithub.com/what-it-was-like-to-work-with-julian-assange-on-publishing-wikileaks/

[cleopatra2]

10 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

So it was trump that decided to pursue Asssange?

https://theintercept.com/2017/04/14/trumps-cia-director-pompeo-targeting-wikileaks-explicitly-threatens-speech-and-press-freedoms/

[ballpoint]

12 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

It’s called conspiracy.

 

And here’s a legal fact, no matter what crime, conspiracy to vomit that crime is as severely punished, often more severely punished than committing the crime itself.

"Vomit a crime", what an apt analogy.

[cleopatra2]

One of the more intriguing points is did the Vatican leaks have significant bearing on Ecuador's decision to remove asylum status

[Mavideol]

18 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

It’s called conspiracy.

 

And here’s a legal fact, no matter what crime, conspiracy to vomit that crime is as severely punished, often more severely punished than committing the crime itself.

conspiracy could involve a lot of countries, some from south & central america, the uk and sweeden all of it it's a game and at the end we all loose, no freedom of speech

[JimmyJ]

"Today, I stand with Julian Assange and Wikileaks."

 - Senator Mike Gravel

 

 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D34s5y0WwAEsnEj.jpg

 

 

[JimmyJ]

I've noticed that a poster calling him/herself "Chomper Higgot" is putting laughter emoticons after non-humorous posts which he obviously finds disturbing and threatening to his world view, in this and other threads.

 

Ouchie!!!

I must confess - nothing is more intellectually devastating to one's post then to know that an anonymous internet poster on TVF who I assume is over the age of 5 is posting a laughing emoticon.

 

The intellect and insight of such cannot be denied.

Pulitzer Prize level commentary.

Edited April 12, 2019 by JimmyJ

[Pilotman]

2 hours ago, darksidedog said:

Whatever you think of the man himself, this is a very dark day for freedom of speech. What is the next person going to do when they discover that their government has been up to all sort of foul play? Make it public and risk going to jail, or keep their mouth shut and let atrocities continue?

well it sure is a bad day for self absorbed, arrogant, narcissistic, terrorists like this man. He and his mates have done more damage to the freedoms enjoyed in the 'free World' than anything a few misguided and criminal elements in the democratic government's, their military and their agents have done. I would have him shot for espionage.