<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/julian-assange-held-in-london-jail-ahead-of-long-legal-fight-209853">Wikileaks founder Julian Assange</a> is being held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison which has housed some of Britain's most notorious inmates, a legal source told AFP Friday.

The Sun newspaper had earlier reported that Assange had been taken to Wandsworth Prison following his dramatic arrest at Ecuador's embassy in London on Thursday.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/timeline-key-developments-leading-to-julian-assanges-arrest-209585">Timeline: Key developments leading to Julian Assange's arrest</a>

Meanwhile, in Australia, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said consular officials would try to visit Assange, a 47-year-old Australian citizen, on Friday.

The Australian High Commission in London could not confirm or deny whether the visit had gone ahead.

The prison in southeast London became one of the country's best-known jails after Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs and career criminal Charles Bronson -- dubbed "the most violent prisoner in Britain" -- were held there.

Opened in 1991 next to Woolwich Crown Court, it has frequently been used in high-profile national security cases.

Among those to have called its cells home is former Finsbury Park Mosque hate preacher Abu Hamza -- who now resides in an American "supermax" prison following extradition.

Radical cleric Anjem Choudary, who was convicted in 2016 of encouraging support for the Islamic State group, spent some of his sentence there.

Belmarsh earned the moniker "the UK's Guantanamo Bay" in the period following the 9/11 attacks after it was used to detain a number of people under anti-terror laws.

The prison, which has a capacity of around 900, houses inmates on remand and serving short sentences as well as those convicted of the most serious offences.

It can hold prisoners "requiring specific management arrangements because of their public and media profile," according to an inspection report last year.

The report said the facility suffered from a "significant shortage of frontline staff" which had resulted in a "severely depleted daily regime" that limited the time inmates could be given outside their cells.

Belmarsh may be an upgrade for Assange on his previous British prison digs.

The infamous whistleblower spent nine days in Wandsworth prison in 2010 following an investigation over alleged sexual assault in Sweden.&nbsp;

Deemed "the most overcrowded prison" in England at its last inspection in 2018, the 19th-century facility holds around 1,600 inmates, with most prisoners sharing a cell designed for one person.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is being held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison which has housed some of Britain's most notorious inmates, a legal source told AFP Friday.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is being held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison which has housed some of Britain's most notorious inmates, a legal source told AFP Friday. The Sun newspaper had earlier reported that Assange had been taken to Wandsworth Prison following his dramatic arrest at Ecuador's embassy in London on Thursday. Timeline: Key developments leading to Julian Assange's arrest Meanwhile, in Australia, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said consular officials would try to visit Assange, a 47-year-old Australian citizen, on Friday. The Australian High Commission in London could not confirm or deny whether the visit had gone ahead. The prison in southeast London became one of the country's best-known jails after Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs and career criminal Charles Bronson -- dubbed "the most violent prisoner in Britain" -- were held there. Opened in 1991 next to Woolwich Crown Court, it has frequently been used in high-profile national security cases. Among those to have called its cells home is former Finsbury Park Mosque hate preacher Abu Hamza -- who now resides in an American "supermax" prison following extradition. Radical cleric Anjem Choudary, who was convicted in 2016 of encouraging support for the Islamic State group, spent some of his sentence there. Belmarsh earned the moniker "the UK's Guantanamo Bay" in the period following the 9/11 attacks after it was used to detain a number of people under anti-terror laws. The prison, which has a capacity of around 900, houses inmates on remand and serving short sentences as well as those convicted of the most serious offences. It can hold prisoners "requiring specific management arrangements because of their public and media profile," according to an inspection report last year. The report said the facility suffered from a "significant shortage of frontline staff" which had resulted in a "severely depleted daily regime" that limited the time inmates could be given outside their cells. Belmarsh may be an upgrade for Assange on his previous British prison digs. The infamous whistleblower spent nine days in Wandsworth prison in 2010 following an investigation over alleged sexual assault in Sweden. Deemed "the most overcrowded prison" in England at its last inspection in 2018, the 19th-century facility holds around 1,600 inmates, with most prisoners sharing a cell designed for one person.

Julian Assange held in London's Belmarsh prison ahead of long legal fight

Using cryptography and virtual drop boxes, Julian Assange's WikiLeaks created a revolutionary new model for media to lure massive digitised leaks from whistleblowers, exposing everything from US military secrets to wealthy tax-dodgers' illicit offshore accounts.

Assange's arrest in London Thursday on a US extradition request to face charges of computer crimes could spell the end of 13-year-old WikiLeaks.&nbsp;

But his legacy will live long in the world's media.&nbsp;

News outlets and journalists everywhere can now offer to potential sources encrypted apps and secure virtual mailboxes to receive secrets that were once divulged by discreet whispers, furtive phone calls and unmarked manila envelopes.

Skilled at hacking and cryptography -- and motivated by a deep distrust of traditional institutions -- Australia-born Assange took a cypherpunk's libertarian streak to the challenge of government secrecy.

In 2006 he built an online platform that offered an anonymous, encrypted path to leak computerized files without fear of exposure.

'We liberated cryptography'

Leaks have forever been crucial currency in journalism. But no one had before created a convenient, relatively easy-to-use electronic drop box that could almost instantly, with absolute secrecy, take delivery of gigabytes of documents.

And he did it at a ripe time, as the connected world emerged and social media took off.

For Assange, it was the democratization of powers that had before belonged to governments alone. "Cryptography was then the exclusive property of states," he wrote in 2013.

"By writing our own software and disseminating it far and wide we liberated cryptography, democratized it and spread it through the frontiers of the new internet."

WikiLeaks' first release in December 2006 was an apparent assassination order by a Somali rebel leader that may or may not have been authentic.

But it drew attention. Over the next year, WikiLeaks obtained documents baring the Kenyan leader's corruption, the secret operating rules for the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and offshore banking records from a Swiss bank.

It began scooping mainstream media on stories from secret climate discussions to Iran's nuclear activities and Icelandic banking fraud.&nbsp;

The Manning files&nbsp;

In 2010 US army intelligence official Chelsea Manning -- a transgender woman then known as Bradley -- began secretly feeding hundreds of thousands of classified files to WikiLeaks.

They showed possible war crimes by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a never-before-seen video of a US helicopter attack in Iraq that killed 18 people, including civilians and two Reuters journalists.

The stunning leak could not have been carried out in the old days of faxes and printers and it put WikiLeaks into the mainstream.

Assange partnered with The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and others to help sort through and make sense of the Manning material. WikiLeaks won awards and Assange was put on the cover of Time magazine.

"What WikiLeaks demonstrated was the potential for a stateless transparency organization to get around the ability of the most powerful governments in the world to suppress information," said Micah Sifry, author of a 2011 book on WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks copycats

Almost as soon as he hit that peak, Assange's star began to fade.

Political pressure to counter WikiLeaks was huge. A multi-country effort got major credit card and payment firms to cut WikiLeaks' financial lifeline of donations.

And he began to fall out with collaborators, a victim of his domineering personality that made WikiLeaks a one-man show, and his insistence that leaked material be published unedited, including that information that could harm people -- soldiers in the field, human rights activists and others.

But by 2012 others were already adopting his model of setting up encrypted, anonymous paths for leakers to hand over documents.

WikiLeaks copycat sites opened in different countries. Journalists became trained in the use of encryption and secret file transfers.

"Exposing the secrets of the US government was a powerful signal that nobody could keep information under control in the internet age," said Sifry.

US whistleblower Edward Snowden did not deliver his trove of hundreds of thousands of top-secret intelligence and military documents to a media drop-box in 2013.&nbsp;

But he used encrypted communications that Assange helped popularize to communicate with the journalists he collaborated with.

In 2013 the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which had aided WikiLeaks with financing, developed a new anonymous drop box free for anyone to use: SecureDrop.&nbsp;

The New Yorker, an early adopter, explained its value to leakers: "As it's set up, even we won't be able to figure out where files sent to us come from. If anyone asks us, we won't be able to tell them."

SecureDrop is important to the most successful WikiLeaks-like operation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.&nbsp;

In recent years it has obtained from leakers millions of financial account files detailing money laundering and tax avoidance from offshore banking centers -- the "Panama Papers" and "Paradise Papers."

The top of the ICIJ's web page offers links to SecureDrop and other encrypted tools for sharing information.

And it has one simple invitation for its users: "Leak to us."

 
&nbsp;

Using cryptography and virtual drop boxes, Julian Assange's WikiLeaks created a revolutionary new model for media to lure massive digitised leaks from whistleblowers, exposing everything from US military secrets to wealthy tax-dodgers' illicit offshore accounts.

Using cryptography and virtual drop boxes, Julian Assange's WikiLeaks created a revolutionary new model for media to lure massive digitised leaks from whistleblowers, exposing everything from US military secrets to wealthy tax-dodgers' illicit offshore accounts. Assange's arrest in London Thursday on a US extradition request to face charges of computer crimes could spell the end of 13-year-old WikiLeaks. But his legacy will live long in the world's media. News outlets and journalists everywhere can now offer to potential sources encrypted apps and secure virtual mailboxes to receive secrets that were once divulged by discreet whispers, furtive phone calls and unmarked manila envelopes. Skilled at hacking and cryptography -- and motivated by a deep distrust of traditional institutions -- Australia-born Assange took a cypherpunk's libertarian streak to the challenge of government secrecy. In 2006 he built an online platform that offered an anonymous, encrypted path to leak computerized files without fear of exposure. 'We liberated cryptography' Leaks have forever been crucial currency in journalism. But no one had before created a convenient, relatively easy-to-use electronic drop box that could almost instantly, with absolute secrecy, take delivery of gigabytes of documents. And he did it at a ripe time, as the connected world emerged and social media took off. For Assange, it was the democratization of powers that had before belonged to governments alone. "Cryptography was then the exclusive property of states," he wrote in 2013. "By writing our own software and disseminating it far and wide we liberated cryptography, democratized it and spread it through the frontiers of the new internet." WikiLeaks' first release in December 2006 was an apparent assassination order by a Somali rebel leader that may or may not have been authentic. But it drew attention. Over the next year, WikiLeaks obtained documents baring the Kenyan leader's corruption, the secret operating rules for the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and offshore banking records from a Swiss bank. It began scooping mainstream media on stories from secret climate discussions to Iran's nuclear activities and Icelandic banking fraud. The Manning files In 2010 US army intelligence official Chelsea Manning -- a transgender woman then known as Bradley -- began secretly feeding hundreds of thousands of classified files to WikiLeaks. They showed possible war crimes by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a never-before-seen video of a US helicopter attack in Iraq that killed 18 people, including civilians and two Reuters journalists. The stunning leak could not have been carried out in the old days of faxes and printers and it put WikiLeaks into the mainstream. Assange partnered with The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and others to help sort through and make sense of the Manning material. WikiLeaks won awards and Assange was put on the cover of Time magazine. "What WikiLeaks demonstrated was the potential for a stateless transparency organization to get around the ability of the most powerful governments in the world to suppress information," said Micah Sifry, author of a 2011 book on WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks copycats Almost as soon as he hit that peak, Assange's star began to fade. Political pressure to counter WikiLeaks was huge. A multi-country effort got major credit card and payment firms to cut WikiLeaks' financial lifeline of donations. And he began to fall out with collaborators, a victim of his domineering personality that made WikiLeaks a one-man show, and his insistence that leaked material be published unedited, including that information that could harm people -- soldiers in the field, human rights activists and others. But by 2012 others were already adopting his model of setting up encrypted, anonymous paths for leakers to hand over documents. WikiLeaks copycat sites opened in different countries. Journalists became trained in the use of encryption and secret file transfers. "Exposing the secrets of the US government was a powerful signal that nobody could keep information under control in the internet age," said Sifry. US whistleblower Edward Snowden did not deliver his trove of hundreds of thousands of top-secret intelligence and military documents to a media drop-box in 2013. But he used encrypted communications that Assange helped popularize to communicate with the journalists he collaborated with. In 2013 the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which had aided WikiLeaks with financing, developed a new anonymous drop box free for anyone to use: SecureDrop. The New Yorker, an early adopter, explained its value to leakers: "As it's set up, even we won't be able to figure out where files sent to us come from. If anyone asks us, we won't be able to tell them." SecureDrop is important to the most successful WikiLeaks-like operation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In recent years it has obtained from leakers millions of financial account files detailing money laundering and tax avoidance from offshore banking centers -- the "Panama Papers" and "Paradise Papers." The top of the ICIJ's web page offers links to SecureDrop and other encrypted tools for sharing information. And it has one simple invitation for its users: "Leak to us."

WikiLeaks set 21st century model for cyber-leak journalism

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/wion-gravitas-julian-assange-arrested-in-london-209761">WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange</a> woke up in a British jail Friday at the start of a likely lengthy extradition battle after a dramatic end to his seven-year stay in Ecuador's London embassy.

Within hours of police hauling him out of the embassy, the 47-year-old Australia appeared in court for breaching his British bail conditions back in 2012 and to face a subsequent US extradition request.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/timeline-key-developments-leading-to-julian-assanges-arrest-209585">Timeline: Key developments leading to Julian Assange's arrest</a>

After Assange was arrested and dragged into a police van in the British capital, American officials unsealed an indictment against him for computer hacking as part of his WikiLeaks whistleblowing activities.

The Sun tabloid reported he was being held in Wandsworth prison in south London, where he spent nine days in 2010 following an investigation over alleged sexual assault in Sweden that has since been dropped.

Deemed "the most overcrowded prison" in England at its last inspection in 2018, the 19th-century facility holds around 1,600 inmates.

Inspectors found "most prisoners share a cell designed for one person" while more than a third "were receiving psychosocial help for substance misuse problems".

Assange was remanded into prison custody Thursday at a short hearing in front of a London judge, who pronounced him guilty of disobeying his bail terms by fleeing to the embassy in June 2012.

He could receive up to a year in prison when sentenced at an as yet undetermined later date.&nbsp;

His separate extradition case is set to be next heard by video-link at Westminster Magistrates Court on May 2.

Assange's London lawyer Jennifer Robinson confirmed he would be "contesting and fighting" his long-feared extradition to the United States.

"He said: 'I told you so'," Robinson told reporters and supporters, including fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, outside court on Thursday.

WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson warned he fears the US will add more charges, meaning he could face decades in an American prison.

Extradition 'should be opposed'

Assange sought asylum at Ecuador's premises in London's chic Knightsbridge district after a British judge ruled he should be extradited to Sweden to face the sexual assault allegations.

Inside the red-brick building he lived a sparse existence in a flat measuring 18 square metres (190 square feet) and comprising just a bed, shower, computer, treadmill and microwave.&nbsp;

However, relations with his Ecuadoran hosts gradually soured and pro-US President Lenin Moreno on Thursday pulled his asylum, cancelled his citizenship and permitted British police to remove Assange.

Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the arrest as showing "no one is above the law".

But opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a leftist stalwart, called for the government to block the extradition.

"The extradition of Julian Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed," he said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, May's words prompted a furious reaction on Twitter from Assange's mother, who lives in Australia.

She accused the British prime minister of "trying to divert attention away from her Brexit dog's breakfast by cheering on the thuggish, brutal, unlawful arrest of my courageous, tortured multi-award winning journalist son".

Years-long extradition cases

Legal experts said on Friday that the case could take several years mired in British courts and, if appealed, potentially go all the way to the European Court of Justice.

"This extradition will be very difficult to fight -- given the nature of the UK-US extradition agreement," Anthony Hanratty from the law firm BDB Pitmans told The Times.

He added other factors stacked against Assange included "the weight which the UK courts attach to the trust and co-operation between the two countries and the effort the US will likely put in".

At Thursday's hearing, judge Michael Snow described Assange as a "narcissist" and said he could consent to the extradition and "get on with your life".

Previous comparable cases have taken several years.

Two British judges last year agreed to block the extradition of accused hacker Lauri Love to the US, on the grounds it would be "oppressive", in a ruling hailed a "landmark judgement".

The US first requested Love's extradition in 2013.

Meanwhile, Gary McKinnon, a hacker wanted by American authorities for allegedly breaking into military computer systems, waged an ultimately successful decade-long legal battle against his extradition.

Britain eventually said it would not send him to the US because of a high risk he would attempt suicide.

Both Love and McKinnon suffer from Asperger's syndrome, which played a part in the respective rulings.

 
&nbsp;

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange woke up in a British jail Friday at the start of a likely lengthy extradition battle after a dramatic end to his seven-year stay in Ecuador's London embassy.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange woke up in a British jail Friday at the start of a likely lengthy extradition battle after a dramatic end to his seven-year stay in Ecuador's London embassy. Within hours of police hauling him out of the embassy, the 47-year-old Australia appeared in court for breaching his British bail conditions back in 2012 and to face a subsequent US extradition request. Timeline: Key developments leading to Julian Assange's arrest After Assange was arrested and dragged into a police van in the British capital, American officials unsealed an indictment against him for computer hacking as part of his WikiLeaks whistleblowing activities. The Sun tabloid reported he was being held in Wandsworth prison in south London, where he spent nine days in 2010 following an investigation over alleged sexual assault in Sweden that has since been dropped. Deemed "the most overcrowded prison" in England at its last inspection in 2018, the 19th-century facility holds around 1,600 inmates. Inspectors found "most prisoners share a cell designed for one person" while more than a third "were receiving psychosocial help for substance misuse problems". Assange was remanded into prison custody Thursday at a short hearing in front of a London judge, who pronounced him guilty of disobeying his bail terms by fleeing to the embassy in June 2012. He could receive up to a year in prison when sentenced at an as yet undetermined later date. His separate extradition case is set to be next heard by video-link at Westminster Magistrates Court on May 2. Assange's London lawyer Jennifer Robinson confirmed he would be "contesting and fighting" his long-feared extradition to the United States. "He said: 'I told you so'," Robinson told reporters and supporters, including fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, outside court on Thursday. WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson warned he fears the US will add more charges, meaning he could face decades in an American prison. Extradition 'should be opposed' Assange sought asylum at Ecuador's premises in London's chic Knightsbridge district after a British judge ruled he should be extradited to Sweden to face the sexual assault allegations. Inside the red-brick building he lived a sparse existence in a flat measuring 18 square metres (190 square feet) and comprising just a bed, shower, computer, treadmill and microwave. However, relations with his Ecuadoran hosts gradually soured and pro-US President Lenin Moreno on Thursday pulled his asylum, cancelled his citizenship and permitted British police to remove Assange. Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the arrest as showing "no one is above the law". But opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a leftist stalwart, called for the government to block the extradition. "The extradition of Julian Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed," he said on Twitter. Meanwhile, May's words prompted a furious reaction on Twitter from Assange's mother, who lives in Australia. She accused the British prime minister of "trying to divert attention away from her Brexit dog's breakfast by cheering on the thuggish, brutal, unlawful arrest of my courageous, tortured multi-award winning journalist son". Years-long extradition cases Legal experts said on Friday that the case could take several years mired in British courts and, if appealed, potentially go all the way to the European Court of Justice. "This extradition will be very difficult to fight -- given the nature of the UK-US extradition agreement," Anthony Hanratty from the law firm BDB Pitmans told The Times. He added other factors stacked against Assange included "the weight which the UK courts attach to the trust and co-operation between the two countries and the effort the US will likely put in". At Thursday's hearing, judge Michael Snow described Assange as a "narcissist" and said he could consent to the extradition and "get on with your life". Previous comparable cases have taken several years. Two British judges last year agreed to block the extradition of accused hacker Lauri Love to the US, on the grounds it would be "oppressive", in a ruling hailed a "landmark judgement". The US first requested Love's extradition in 2013. Meanwhile, Gary McKinnon, a hacker wanted by American authorities for allegedly breaking into military computer systems, waged an ultimately successful decade-long legal battle against his extradition. Britain eventually said it would not send him to the US because of a high risk he would attempt suicide. Both Love and McKinnon suffer from Asperger's syndrome, which played a part in the respective rulings.

Julian Assange held in London jail ahead of long legal fight

Cryptography & virtual drop boxes: How Assange's WikiLeaks changed journalism

WikiLeaks accused Ecuador on Thursday of "illegally" withdrawing asylum for its founder <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/wikileaks-julian-assange-has-been-arrested-uk-police-209546">Julian Assange </a>and said Ecuador's ambassador to London had invited British police into the building to <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/timeline-of-wikileaks-founder-julian-assanges-arrest-209547">arrest </a>him.

"Ecuador has illegally terminated Assange's political asylum in violation of international law," the site said on Twitter, adding that the ambassador "invited British police into the embassy and he was immediately arrested".

Wikileaks founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/timeline-of-wikileaks-founder-julian-assanges-arrest-209547">Julian Assange</a>&nbsp;has been arrested in London after being evicted from the Ecuadorean Embassy, British police said on Thursday.

UK police say they were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy after its government withdrew asylum.

Assange was taken into custody at a central London police station, before he’s presented at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

The United States Justice Department has filed criminal charges against Assange, 47, related to the publication of classified documents, a fact that prosecutors accidentally made public in November. He also faces a charge in a British court of jumping bail.

Assange is also suspected of aiding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by releasing material stolen from the computers of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. In July, the Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking those computers, and the indictment contends that at least one of them was in contact with WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange has been the subject of a sophisticated spying operation in the Ecuadorean embassy where he has been holed up since 2012, the group said.

Assange’s future in the embassy was called into question last year after the president of Ecuador said he would “eventually” have to leave the property and revealed that he was in discussions with British authorities to end his asylum.&nbsp;

The WikiLeaks founder was first granted asylum in 2012 in order to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault.

WikiLeaks accused Ecuador on Thursday of "illegally" withdrawing asylum for its founder Julian Assange and said Ecuador's ambassador to London had invited British police into the building to arrest him.

WikiLeaks accused Ecuador on Thursday of "illegally" withdrawing asylum for its founder Julian Assange and said Ecuador's ambassador to London had invited British police into the building to arrest him. "Ecuador has illegally terminated Assange's political asylum in violation of international law," the site said on Twitter, adding that the ambassador "invited British police into the embassy and he was immediately arrested". Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested in London after being evicted from the Ecuadorean Embassy, British police said on Thursday. UK police say they were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy after its government withdrew asylum. Assange was taken into custody at a central London police station, before he’s presented at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The United States Justice Department has filed criminal charges against Assange, 47, related to the publication of classified documents, a fact that prosecutors accidentally made public in November. He also faces a charge in a British court of jumping bail. Assange is also suspected of aiding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by releasing material stolen from the computers of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. In July, the Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking those computers, and the indictment contends that at least one of them was in contact with WikiLeaks. Julian Assange has been the subject of a sophisticated spying operation in the Ecuadorean embassy where he has been holed up since 2012, the group said. Assange’s future in the embassy was called into question last year after the president of Ecuador said he would “eventually” have to leave the property and revealed that he was in discussions with British authorities to end his asylum. The WikiLeaks founder was first granted asylum in 2012 in order to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of sexual assault.

Ecuador's withdrawal of asylum for Assange illegal: WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks founder <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/wikileaks-julian-assange-has-been-arrested-uk-police-209546">Julian Assange has been arrested</a> and taken into custody in central London, British police said on Thursday.

Assange was taken into custody at a central London police station, before he’s presented at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Julian Assange has been the subject of a sophisticated spying operation in the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/ecuadors-withdrawal-of-asylum-for-assange-illegal-wikileaks-209553">Ecuadorean embassy</a> where he has been holed up since 2012, the group said.

Key developments in the affair:

- 2010: leaks, arrest warrant -

- July, October 2010:

WikiLeaks releases some 470,000 classified military documents concerning American diplomacy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It later releases a further tranche of more than 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables.

- November 18, 2010:

A Swedish prosecutor issues a European arrest warrant for Assange over sexual assault allegations involving two Swedish women. Assange denies the claims, saying the young women consented.

- December, 2010:

Assange turns himself in to police in London and is placed in custody pending a ruling on the Swedish extradition request. He is later released on bail and calls the Swedish allegations a smear campaign.

- 2011: Extradition ruling -

- February 2011:

A British judge rules that Assange can be extradited to Sweden. Assange fears Sweden will hand him over to US authorities who could prosecute him for publishing the documents.

- 2012: refuge at embassy -

- June 2012:

Assange takes refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London. He requests, and is later granted, political asylum.

- 2013: Safe-conduct refused -

- October 2013:

Ecuador asks Britain in vain to allow Assange to fly to Quito.

- 2016: UN appeal -

January 2016:

Quito rejects an offer by Swedish prosecutors to question Assange in London.

February 2016:

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says Assange has been "arbitrarily detained" and should be able to claim compensation from Britain and Sweden. Britain and Sweden rebuff the non-binding ruling.

- 2017: sex case closed -

January 2017:

WikiLeaks says Assange could travel to the US to face investigation after one of the site's main sources Chelsea Manning is given clemency -- but only if his rights were "guaranteed".

May 2017:

Swedish prosecutors say they have closed their seven-year sex assault investigation. British police say they would still arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy as he breached the terms of his bail in 2012.

December 2017:

Quito grants Assange Ecuadoran nationality. Britain refuses Ecuador's request to accord Assange diplomatic status, which would allow him to leave the embassy without being arrested.

- 2018: Ecuador seeks solution -

January 2018:

Ecuador says it is seeking a mediator to resolve Assange's "untenable" situation.

February 2018:

Assange loses a bid to have his British arrest warrant cancelled on health grounds.

March 2018:

Ecuador cuts off Assange's communications alleging he broke an agreement on interfering in other countries' affairs.

October 2018:

Ecuador imposes new conditions on Assange in the embassy, warning that breaching them could lead to the "end of asylum".

November 2018:

US prosecutors inadvertently disclose the existence of a sealed indictment against Assange.

2019: Ecuador complaint

On April 3, 2019 Moreno says Assange has "repeatedly violated" the conditions of his asylum at the embassy.

April 11:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested and taken into custody in central London.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested and taken into custody in central London, British police said on Thursday. Assange was taken into custody at a central London police station, before he’s presented at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested and taken into custody in central London, British police said on Thursday. Assange was taken into custody at a central London police station, before he’s presented at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Julian Assange has been the subject of a sophisticated spying operation in the Ecuadorean embassy where he has been holed up since 2012, the group said. Key developments in the affair: - 2010: leaks, arrest warrant - - July, October 2010: WikiLeaks releases some 470,000 classified military documents concerning American diplomacy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It later releases a further tranche of more than 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables. - November 18, 2010: A Swedish prosecutor issues a European arrest warrant for Assange over sexual assault allegations involving two Swedish women. Assange denies the claims, saying the young women consented. - December, 2010: Assange turns himself in to police in London and is placed in custody pending a ruling on the Swedish extradition request. He is later released on bail and calls the Swedish allegations a smear campaign. - 2011: Extradition ruling - - February 2011: A British judge rules that Assange can be extradited to Sweden. Assange fears Sweden will hand him over to US authorities who could prosecute him for publishing the documents. - 2012: refuge at embassy - - June 2012: Assange takes refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London. He requests, and is later granted, political asylum. - 2013: Safe-conduct refused - - October 2013: Ecuador asks Britain in vain to allow Assange to fly to Quito. - 2016: UN appeal - January 2016: Quito rejects an offer by Swedish prosecutors to question Assange in London. February 2016: The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says Assange has been "arbitrarily detained" and should be able to claim compensation from Britain and Sweden. Britain and Sweden rebuff the non-binding ruling. - 2017: sex case closed - January 2017: WikiLeaks says Assange could travel to the US to face investigation after one of the site's main sources Chelsea Manning is given clemency -- but only if his rights were "guaranteed". May 2017: Swedish prosecutors say they have closed their seven-year sex assault investigation. British police say they would still arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy as he breached the terms of his bail in 2012. December 2017: Quito grants Assange Ecuadoran nationality. Britain refuses Ecuador's request to accord Assange diplomatic status, which would allow him to leave the embassy without being arrested. - 2018: Ecuador seeks solution - January 2018: Ecuador says it is seeking a mediator to resolve Assange's "untenable" situation. February 2018: Assange loses a bid to have his British arrest warrant cancelled on health grounds. March 2018: Ecuador cuts off Assange's communications alleging he broke an agreement on interfering in other countries' affairs. October 2018: Ecuador imposes new conditions on Assange in the embassy, warning that breaching them could lead to the "end of asylum". November 2018: US prosecutors inadvertently disclose the existence of a sealed indictment against Assange. 2019: Ecuador complaint On April 3, 2019 Moreno says Assange has "repeatedly violated" the conditions of his asylum at the embassy. April 11: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested and taken into custody in central London.

Timeline: Key developments leading to Julian Assange's arrest

UN rights experts called on British authorities on Friday to allow WikiLeaks founder <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/path-cleared-for-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-to-leave-ecuador-embassy-president-moreno-182030">Julian Assange</a> to leave the Ecuador embassy in London without fear of arrest or extradition.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reiterated its finding published in February 2016 that Assange had been de facto unlawfully held without charge in the embassy, where he has now been holed up for more than six years.

He initially took asylum to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation. That investigation was dropped.

Assange, whose website published thousands of classified US government documents, denied the Sweden allegations, saying the charge was a ploy that would eventually take him to the United States where prosecutors are preparing to pursue a criminal case against him.

Britain says Assange will be arrested for skipping bail if he leaves the embassy, but that any sentence would not exceed six months if convicted. It had no immediate comment on the experts' call, but in June, foreign office minister Alan Duncan said Assange would be treated humanely and properly.

"The only ground remaining for Mr Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offence that cannot post facto justify the more than six years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador," the UN experts said in a statement.

"It is time that Mr Assange, who has already paid a high price for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of opinion, expression and information, and to promote the right to truth in the public interest, recovers his freedom,” they said.

Lawyers for Assange and others have said his work with WikiLeaks was critical to a free press and was protected speech.

The experts voiced concern that his "deprivation of liberty" was undermining his health and could "endanger his life" given the disproportionate amount of anxiety that has entailed.

Ecuador in October imposed new rules requiring him to receive routine medical exams, following concern he was not getting the medical attention he needed. The rules also ordered him to pay medical and phone bills and clean up after his cat.

Assange has sued Ecuador, arguing the rules violate his rights. An Ecuadorean court on Friday upheld a prior ruling dismissing Assange's suit.

"We have lost again," said Carlos Povedo, Assange's attorney in Ecuador, adding that the legal team would consider bringing a case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

UN rights experts called on British authorities on Friday to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to leave the Ecuador embassy in London without fear of arrest or extradition.

UN rights experts called on British authorities on Friday to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to leave the Ecuador embassy in London without fear of arrest or extradition. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reiterated its finding published in February 2016 that Assange had been de facto unlawfully held without charge in the embassy, where he has now been holed up for more than six years. He initially took asylum to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation. That investigation was dropped. Assange, whose website published thousands of classified US government documents, denied the Sweden allegations, saying the charge was a ploy that would eventually take him to the United States where prosecutors are preparing to pursue a criminal case against him. Britain says Assange will be arrested for skipping bail if he leaves the embassy, but that any sentence would not exceed six months if convicted. It had no immediate comment on the experts' call, but in June, foreign office minister Alan Duncan said Assange would be treated humanely and properly. "The only ground remaining for Mr Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offence that cannot post facto justify the more than six years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador," the UN experts said in a statement. "It is time that Mr Assange, who has already paid a high price for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of opinion, expression and information, and to promote the right to truth in the public interest, recovers his freedom,” they said. Lawyers for Assange and others have said his work with WikiLeaks was critical to a free press and was protected speech. The experts voiced concern that his "deprivation of liberty" was undermining his health and could "endanger his life" given the disproportionate amount of anxiety that has entailed. Ecuador in October imposed new rules requiring him to receive routine medical exams, following concern he was not getting the medical attention he needed. The rules also ordered him to pay medical and phone bills and clean up after his cat. Assange has sued Ecuador, arguing the rules violate his rights. An Ecuadorean court on Friday upheld a prior ruling dismissing Assange's suit. "We have lost again," said Carlos Povedo, Assange's attorney in Ecuador, adding that the legal team would consider bringing a case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

UN calls on UK to allow Julian Assange to leave Ecuador embassy freely

Ecuador puts up pressure on Assange to leave Embassy

Whistleblower website <a href="http://www.wionews.com/world/wikileaks-assange-says-ecuador-seeking-to-end-his-asylum-174759">WikiLeaks said today that the US </a>government has charged Julian Assange&nbsp;although it did not specify the nature of the indictment.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, 47, was responsible for dumping huge tranche of classified US military document in 2010.&nbsp;

Assange has been holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London after Sweden sought his arrest for rape charges, although the rape charges were later dropped the Wikileaks founder fears he would be extradited to the US if he walks out of the embassy in London.

Wikileaks said prosecutors had revealed the existence of the sealed indictment inadvertently in a court filing in an unrelated case.

Ahead of the revelation, Ecuador had on Wednesday said it had received no extradition request for Julian Assange.

"We have told Mr Assange: 'Up to now, as far as we know, there is no extradition request from any country,'" Foreign Minister Jose Valencia told a local radio channel as speculation has grown in recent months on a possible extradition request from the US.

Assange lawyer Carlos Poveda had said last month that &nbsp;Assange was prepared to surrender to British police if he receives assurances he will not be extradited.

"What England asks of him is to appear before the British courts to answer for having broken the conditions of his provisional release," the foreign minister said.

"We do not see the British changing their point of view, they continue to insist that he appear before the courts and that they will not give him safe passage to another country," Valencia added.&nbsp;

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks said today that the US government has charged Julian Assange although it did not specify the nature of the indictment. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, 47, was responsible for dumping huge tranche of classified US military document in 2010.

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks said today that the US government has charged Julian Assange although it did not specify the nature of the indictment. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, 47, was responsible for dumping huge tranche of classified US military document in 2010. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London after Sweden sought his arrest for rape charges, although the rape charges were later dropped the Wikileaks founder fears he would be extradited to the US if he walks out of the embassy in London. Wikileaks said prosecutors had revealed the existence of the sealed indictment inadvertently in a court filing in an unrelated case. Ahead of the revelation, Ecuador had on Wednesday said it had received no extradition request for Julian Assange. "We have told Mr Assange: 'Up to now, as far as we know, there is no extradition request from any country,'" Foreign Minister Jose Valencia told a local radio channel as speculation has grown in recent months on a possible extradition request from the US. Assange lawyer Carlos Poveda had said last month that Assange was prepared to surrender to British police if he receives assurances he will not be extradited. "What England asks of him is to appear before the British courts to answer for having broken the conditions of his provisional release," the foreign minister said. "We do not see the British changing their point of view, they continue to insist that he appear before the courts and that they will not give him safe passage to another country," Valencia added.

Julian Assange charged by US authorities: WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions.

Assange spoke from the embassy via teleconference at a hearing in Quito of a lawsuit challenging the Ecuadorean government requiring him to pay for medical bills, phone calls and clean up after his pet cat.

He took refuge in the embassy six years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden in a sexual assault case that was later dropped. He remains there to avoid being jailed by Great Britain for violating the terms of his bail, which he has said would result in his being handed over to Washington.

During the hearing, Assange said the new rules were a sign Ecuador was trying to push him out, and said Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had already decided to end his asylum but had not yet officially given the order.

"If Mr. Assange wants to stay and he follows the rules ... he can stay at the embassy as long as he wants," said Attorney General Inigo Salvador, adding that Assange's stay had cost the country $6 million.

Foreign Minister Jose Valencia declined to comment on Assange's assertion that Ecuador sought to hand him over to the United States.

Judge Karina Martinez rejected the lawsuit, saying the Foreign Ministry was in charge of determining his living conditions.

Assange's legal team said it immediately appealed the ruling.

Embassy staff had complained of Assange riding a skateboard in the halls, of playing soccer on the grounds and behaving aggressively with security personnel.

Ecuador's government also objected to his making online commentary about sensitive political issues in other countries, including publishing opinions about the Catalonia separatist movement in Spain.

The new rules were meant to address these concerns, Salvador said.

The United Kingdom in August had assured Assange that he would not be extradited if he left the embassy, Salvador told reporters last week.

Valencia told Reuters last week that the government was "frustrated" by the lawsuit and that it would no longer intervene with British authorities on Assange's behalf.

US federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, have maintained a long-running grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks, which according to one source includes a probe into leaks of Central Intelligence Agency documents to the website.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Monday that Ecuador is seeking to end his asylum in its London embassy and hand him over to the United States, but a judge rejected his lawsuit over embassy living conditions. Assange spoke from the embassy via teleconference at a hearing in Quito of a lawsuit challenging the Ecuadorean government requiring him to pay for medical bills, phone calls and clean up after his pet cat. He took refuge in the embassy six years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden in a sexual assault case that was later dropped. He remains there to avoid being jailed by Great Britain for violating the terms of his bail, which he has said would result in his being handed over to Washington. During the hearing, Assange said the new rules were a sign Ecuador was trying to push him out, and said Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had already decided to end his asylum but had not yet officially given the order. "If Mr. Assange wants to stay and he follows the rules ... he can stay at the embassy as long as he wants," said Attorney General Inigo Salvador, adding that Assange's stay had cost the country $6 million. Foreign Minister Jose Valencia declined to comment on Assange's assertion that Ecuador sought to hand him over to the United States. Judge Karina Martinez rejected the lawsuit, saying the Foreign Ministry was in charge of determining his living conditions. Assange's legal team said it immediately appealed the ruling. Embassy staff had complained of Assange riding a skateboard in the halls, of playing soccer on the grounds and behaving aggressively with security personnel. Ecuador's government also objected to his making online commentary about sensitive political issues in other countries, including publishing opinions about the Catalonia separatist movement in Spain. The new rules were meant to address these concerns, Salvador said. The United Kingdom in August had assured Assange that he would not be extradited if he left the embassy, Salvador told reporters last week. Valencia told Reuters last week that the government was "frustrated" by the lawsuit and that it would no longer intervene with British authorities on Assange's behalf. US federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, have maintained a long-running grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks, which according to one source includes a probe into leaks of Central Intelligence Agency documents to the website.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Ecuador seeking to end his asylum

Ecuador announced Thursday it would withdraw additional security measures at its London embassy after an investigation found it plunged $5 million into a spy operation to protect WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The move, ordered by President Lenin Moreno, came after The Guardian newspaper and Focus Ecuador revealed the previous administration of Rafael Correa funded the operation that involved monitoring Assange's visitors, embassy personnel and the British police.

In March, Ecuador cut off Assange's ability to communicate with the outside world after he broke a 2017 promise to not interfere in other countries' affairs while in the mission.

Assange, 46, sought refuge in the embassy in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations, which he denies.

Assange claims the accusations were politically motivated and could lead to his being extradited to the United States to face imprisonment over WikiLeaks' publication of secret US military documents and diplomatic cables in 2010.

Swedish authorities dropped their investigations last year, but British authorities still want to arrest him for breaching bail conditions.

Ecuador announced Thursday it would withdraw additional security measures at its London embassy after an investigation found it plunged $5 million into a spy operation to protect WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Ecuador announced Thursday it would withdraw additional security measures at its London embassy after an investigation found it plunged $5 million into a spy operation to protect WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The move, ordered by President Lenin Moreno, came after The Guardian newspaper and Focus Ecuador revealed the previous administration of Rafael Correa funded the operation that involved monitoring Assange's visitors, embassy personnel and the British police. In March, Ecuador cut off Assange's ability to communicate with the outside world after he broke a 2017 promise to not interfere in other countries' affairs while in the mission. Assange, 46, sought refuge in the embassy in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations, which he denies. Assange claims the accusations were politically motivated and could lead to his being extradited to the United States to face imprisonment over WikiLeaks' publication of secret US military documents and diplomatic cables in 2010. Swedish authorities dropped their investigations last year, but British authorities still want to arrest him for breaching bail conditions.

Ecuador to withdraw 'additional security' at London embassy

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost a legal bid on Tuesday to persuade British authorities to drop further action against him for breaching his bail conditions when he walked into the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012.

The ruling means Assange remains in a legal and diplomatic impasse, with no way out of the embassy where he has been living for almost six years unless he decides to face the prospect of arrest by British police.

Assange, 46, entered Ecuador&#39;s embassy in June 2012 after skipping bail to avoid being sent to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied. The Swedish case was dropped in May last year, but Britain still has a warrant out for his arrest over the breach of bail terms.

&quot;I find arrest is a proportionate response even though Mr Assange has restricted his own freedom for a number of years,&quot; judge Emma Arbuthnot, the chief magistrate of England and Wales, said in her ruling at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Assange says he fears that if he hands himself in he could be extradited to the United States to be prosecuted for publishing US&nbsp;diplomatic and military secrets on WikiLeaks.

There is no public record or evidence demonstrating any US&nbsp;criminal charges are pending against Assange, but he and his supporters believe US&nbsp;prosecutors could have a sealed, therefore secret, indictment against him.

His lawyers had argued in a court hearing last week that it was no longer in the interests of justice for British authorities to seek to arrest and prosecute him for skipping bail, but the judge rejected their points.

&quot;Defendants on bail up and down the country, and requested persons facing extradition, come to court to face the consequences of their own choices. He should have the courage to do so too,&quot; she said.

&quot;The impression I have ... is that he is a man who wants to impose his terms on the course of justice.&quot;

Assange, who is very active on Twitter, appeared to be closely following the hearing from within the embassy. He sent a number of tweets while the judge was reading out her ruling, one of them commenting that it did not seem to be going well for him and others linking to articles favourable to him.

In one passage from her ruling, the judge said she did not accept the argument of Assange&#39;s lawyers that he had no access to sunlight. She said she had seen photographs of him on the embassy balcony.

&quot;Pulling security to get me safely on the balcony six times in six years for a few minutes turns into this,&quot; Assange tweeted in response.

Assange&#39;s supporters regard him as a champion of freedom of speech who has exposed inconvenient truths at great personal cost. His critics say that some of the WikiLeaks material posted online endangered lives in several countries, and that he has been too eager to side with autocratic regimes in his determination to criticise the United States.

The ruling means Assange remains in a legal and diplomatic impasse, with no way out of the embassy where he has been living for almost six years

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost a legal bid on Tuesday to persuade British authorities to drop further action against him for breaching his bail conditions when he walked into the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012. The ruling means Assange remains in a legal and diplomatic impasse, with no way out of the embassy where he has been living for almost six years unless he decides to face the prospect of arrest by British police. Assange, 46, entered Ecuador's embassy in June 2012 after skipping bail to avoid being sent to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied. The Swedish case was dropped in May last year, but Britain still has a warrant out for his arrest over the breach of bail terms. "I find arrest is a proportionate response even though Mr Assange has restricted his own freedom for a number of years," judge Emma Arbuthnot, the chief magistrate of England and Wales, said in her ruling at Westminster Magistrates Court. Assange says he fears that if he hands himself in he could be extradited to the United States to be prosecuted for publishing US diplomatic and military secrets on WikiLeaks. There is no public record or evidence demonstrating any US criminal charges are pending against Assange, but he and his supporters believe US prosecutors could have a sealed, therefore secret, indictment against him. His lawyers had argued in a court hearing last week that it was no longer in the interests of justice for British authorities to seek to arrest and prosecute him for skipping bail, but the judge rejected their points. "Defendants on bail up and down the country, and requested persons facing extradition, come to court to face the consequences of their own choices. He should have the courage to do so too," she said. "The impression I have ... is that he is a man who wants to impose his terms on the course of justice." Assange, who is very active on Twitter, appeared to be closely following the hearing from within the embassy. He sent a number of tweets while the judge was reading out her ruling, one of them commenting that it did not seem to be going well for him and others linking to articles favourable to him. In one passage from her ruling, the judge said she did not accept the argument of Assange's lawyers that he had no access to sunlight. She said she had seen photographs of him on the embassy balcony. "Pulling security to get me safely on the balcony six times in six years for a few minutes turns into this," Assange tweeted in response. Assange's supporters regard him as a champion of freedom of speech who has exposed inconvenient truths at great personal cost. His critics say that some of the WikiLeaks material posted online endangered lives in several countries, and that he has been too eager to side with autocratic regimes in his determination to criticise the United States.

WikiLeaks founder Assange loses bid to halt UK legal action against him

Swedish prosecutors Friday dropped a seven-year rape investigation into Julian Assange, a legal victory for the WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012.

&quot;Director of Public Prosecution, Marianne Ny, has today decided to discontinue the investigation regarding suspected rape by Julian Assange,&quot; the prosecutor&#39;s office said in a statement.&nbsp;

Friday was the deadline for the public prosecutor&#39;s office to either renew or lift Assange&#39;s arrest warrant before a Stockholm court.

British police told Reuters&nbsp;separately that it was still under obligation to arrest Assange were he to leave the embassy.

&quot;Westminster Magistrates&#39; Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange following him failing to surrender to the court on the 29 June 2012,&quot; British police told Reuters.

&quot;The Metropolitan Police Service is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy,&quot; the police added.

A British government source would not confirm or deny if the United States had made a request to extradite Assange until an arrest had been made.

Shortly after the decision, Assange posted a picture of himself smiling broadly, without comment.

Ny and Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren are to brief reporters on the decision at 12:00pm (1000 GMT) on Friday.

The 45-year-old Australian has always denied the 2010 allegations, which he feared would see him extradited to the United States and tried over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents.

He has been living at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 and risks being arrested by British police if he steps out of the building.

British police have said they will arrest Assange as soon as he walks out of the embassy because he has broken his conditions for bail -- a relatively minor offence under British law -- by failing to surrender on June 29, 2012 for extradition to Sweden.

Assange&#39;s Swedish lawyer last month filed a new motion demanding that the arrest warrant be lifted after US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April that arresting Assange would be &quot;a priority&quot;.

&quot;This implies that we can now demonstrate that the US has a will to take action... this is why we ask for the arrest warrant to be cancelled so that Julian Assange can fly to Ecuador and enjoy his political asylum,&quot; lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP at the time.

The accusation against Assange dated from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint.&nbsp;

She accused him of having sex with her as she slept without using a condom despite repeatedly having denied him unprotected sex.&nbsp;

Endless delays&nbsp;

&quot;I am entirely innocent,&quot; Assange wrote in a 19-page testimony released in December 2016.

He argues that the sex was consensual and has denounced the accusations as &quot;politically motived&quot;.&nbsp;

The investigation had suffered from multiple procedural complications since it began.

The statute of limitations on the rape allegation expires in August 2020.

In a letter sent to the Swedish government on May 8, Ecuador condemned &quot;the obvious lack of progress&quot; in the investigation despite Assange&#39;s questioning in the presence of the Swedish prosecutor at the embassy in November 2016.

&quot;It is extremely worrying that six months after the hearing at the Embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom, the Swedish prosecutor&#39;s office has not yet decided on the judicial situation of Julian Assange,&quot; the Ecuadoran Foreign Ministry said in the letter seen by AFP.

Swedish judges have refused to take into account the opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 said Assange was effectively &quot;arbitrarily detained&quot; by Sweden and Britain and called for the arrest warrant to be annulled.

&#39;End of nightmare&#39;

A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange welcomed the decision of Swedish prosecutors Friday to drop a seven-year rape investigation against him, saying it was the &quot;end of his nightmare&quot;.

&quot;We have been waiting a long time for this decision,&quot; Christophe Marchand, a member of Assange&#39;s Brussels-based legal team, told AFP.

&quot;Julian Assange has been a victim of a huge abuse of procedure. We are very pleased and very moved, as this marks the end of his nightmare.&quot;

(AFP)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was accused of rape in 2010

Swedish prosecutors Friday dropped a seven-year rape investigation into Julian Assange, a legal victory for the WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012. "Director of Public Prosecution, Marianne Ny, has today decided to discontinue the investigation regarding suspected rape by Julian Assange," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. Friday was the deadline for the public prosecutor's office to either renew or lift Assange's arrest warrant before a Stockholm court. British police told Reuters separately that it was still under obligation to arrest Assange were he to leave the embassy. "Westminster Magistrates' Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange following him failing to surrender to the court on the 29 June 2012," British police told Reuters. "The Metropolitan Police Service is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy," the police added. A British government source would not confirm or deny if the United States had made a request to extradite Assange until an arrest had been made. Shortly after the decision, Assange posted a picture of himself smiling broadly, without comment. Ny and Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren are to brief reporters on the decision at 12:00pm (1000 GMT) on Friday. The 45-year-old Australian has always denied the 2010 allegations, which he feared would see him extradited to the United States and tried over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents. He has been living at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 and risks being arrested by British police if he steps out of the building. British police have said they will arrest Assange as soon as he walks out of the embassy because he has broken his conditions for bail -- a relatively minor offence under British law -- by failing to surrender on June 29, 2012 for extradition to Sweden. Assange's Swedish lawyer last month filed a new motion demanding that the arrest warrant be lifted after US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April that arresting Assange would be "a priority". "This implies that we can now demonstrate that the US has a will to take action... this is why we ask for the arrest warrant to be cancelled so that Julian Assange can fly to Ecuador and enjoy his political asylum," lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP at the time. The accusation against Assange dated from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint. She accused him of having sex with her as she slept without using a condom despite repeatedly having denied him unprotected sex. Endless delays "I am entirely innocent," Assange wrote in a 19-page testimony released in December 2016. He argues that the sex was consensual and has denounced the accusations as "politically motived". The investigation had suffered from multiple procedural complications since it began. The statute of limitations on the rape allegation expires in August 2020. In a letter sent to the Swedish government on May 8, Ecuador condemned "the obvious lack of progress" in the investigation despite Assange's questioning in the presence of the Swedish prosecutor at the embassy in November 2016. "It is extremely worrying that six months after the hearing at the Embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom, the Swedish prosecutor's office has not yet decided on the judicial situation of Julian Assange," the Ecuadoran Foreign Ministry said in the letter seen by AFP. Swedish judges have refused to take into account the opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 said Assange was effectively "arbitrarily detained" by Sweden and Britain and called for the arrest warrant to be annulled. 'End of nightmare' A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange welcomed the decision of Swedish prosecutors Friday to drop a seven-year rape investigation against him, saying it was the "end of his nightmare". "We have been waiting a long time for this decision," Christophe Marchand, a member of Assange's Brussels-based legal team, told AFP. "Julian Assange has been a victim of a huge abuse of procedure. We are very pleased and very moved, as this marks the end of his nightmare." (AFP)

Swedish prosecutors drop rape probe against Assange, UK police to execute arrest warrant

WikiLeaks on Tuesday published what it said were thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions about hacking techniques used over several years, renewing concerns about the security of consumer electronics and embarrassing the&nbsp;US&nbsp;intelligence agency.

The discussion transcripts showed that CIA hackers could get into Apple Inc&nbsp;iPhones, Google Inc&nbsp;Android devices and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software.

Cyber security experts disagreed about the extent of the fallout from the data dump, but said a lot would depend on whether WikiLeaks followed through on a threat to publish the actual hacking tools that could do damage.

Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials, dated between 2013 and 2016, appeared to be legitimate.

&nbsp;

Recent US-Russia context

This comes at a time when President Donald Trump is in a battle with the US spy agencies, who he has likened to &quot;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/15/john-brennan-trump-nazi-germany-russia" target="_blank">Nazi Germany</a>&quot;,&nbsp;who are investigating him for ties to Russia. Trump has claimed, without citing any evidence, that he was wiretapped in Trump Tower before the election.&nbsp;

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Like to remind that I&#39;ve been calling out Wikileaks as a Kremlin front since mid-2013. Took epic shit for speaking truth. Believe me now?
&mdash; John Schindler (@20committee) <a href="https://twitter.com/20committee/status/839143945871441920">March 7, 2017</a></blockquote>
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US&nbsp;intelligence agencies have said that WikiLeaks has ties to Russia&#39;s security services. During the 2016 US&nbsp;presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published internal emails of top Democratic Party officials, which the agencies said were hacked by Moscow as part of a coordinated influence campaign to help Republican Donald Trump win the presidency.

WikiLeaks has denied ties to Russian spy agencies.

Trump praised WikiLeaks during the campaign, often citing hacked emails it published to bolster his attacks on Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.

WikiLeaks&#39; dump about the CIA was released&nbsp;the same day&nbsp;it came to light that <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-personally-met-with-russian-ambassador-during-campaign-cc59ae305032#.l38j375zb" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> himself met with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, on April 27, before a major foreign policy Speech. Trump has repeatedly&nbsp;claimed that neither he nor anyone on his campaign had contact with Russian officials.&nbsp;Four other members of his administration talked to Russian officials.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Back to the hack

A longtime intelligence contractor with expertise in US&nbsp;hacking tools told Reuters the documents included correct &quot;cover&quot; terms describing active cyber programs.

Among the most noteworthy WikiLeaks claims is that the Central Intelligence Agency, in partnership with other US&nbsp;and foreign agencies, has been able to bypass the encryption on popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.

The files did not indicate the actual encryption of Signal or other secure messaging apps had been compromised.

The information in what WikiLeaks said were 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments appears to represent the latest breach in recent years of classified material from US&nbsp;intelligence agencies.

Security experts differed over how much the disclosures could damage US&nbsp;cyber espionage. Many said that, while harmful, they do not compare to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden&#39;s revelations in 2013 of mass NSA data collection.

&quot;This is a big dump about extremely sophisticated tools that can be used to target individual user devices...I haven&rsquo;t yet come across the mass exploiting of mobile devices,&quot; said Tarah Wheeler, senior director of engineering and principal security advocate for Symantec.

Stuart McClure, CEO of Cylance, an Irvine, California, cyber security firm, said that one of the most significant disclosures shows how CIA hackers cover their tracks by leaving electronic trails suggesting they are from Russia, China and Iran rather than the United States.

Other revelations show how the CIA took advantage of vulnerabilities that are known, if not widely publicised.

In one case, the documents say, US&nbsp;and British personnel, under a program known as Weeping Angel, developed ways to take over a Samsung smart television, making it appear it was off when in fact it was recording conversations in the room.

The CIA and White House declined comment. &quot;We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,&quot; CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement.

Google declined to comment on the purported hacking of its Android platform, but said it was investigating the matter.

Snowden on Twitter said the files amount to the first public evidence that the US&nbsp;government secretly buys software to exploit technology, referring to a table published by WikiLeaks that appeared to list various Apple iOS flaws purchased by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Apple Inc&nbsp;did not respond to a request for comment.

The documents refer to means for accessing phones directly in order to catch messages before they are protected by end-to-end encryption tools like Signal.

Signal inventor Moxie Marlinspike said he took that as &quot;confirmation that what we&rsquo;re doing is working&quot;. Signal and the like are &quot;pushing intelligence agencies from a world of undetectable mass surveillance to a world where they have to use expensive, high-risk, extremely targeted attacks&quot;.

&nbsp;

CIA cyber programs

The CIA in recent years underwent a restructuring to focus more on cyber warfare to keep pace with the increasing digital sophistication of foreign adversaries. The spy agency is prohibited by law from collecting intelligence that details domestic activities of Americans and is generally restricted in how it may gather any US&nbsp;data for counterintelligence purposes.

The documents published Tuesday appeared to supply specific details to what has been long-known in the abstract: US&nbsp;intelligence agencies, like their allies and adversaries, are constantly working to discover and exploit flaws in any manner of technology products.

Unlike the Snowden leaks, which revealed the NSA was secretly collecting details of telephone calls by ordinary Americans, the new WikiLeaks material did not appear to contain material that would fundamentally change what is publicly known about cyber espionage.

WikiLeaks, led by Julian Assange, said its publication of the documents on the hacking tools was the first in a series of releases drawing from a data set that includes several hundred million lines of code and includes the CIA&#39;s &quot;entire hacking capacity&quot;.

The documents only include snippets of computer code, not the full programs that would be needed to conduct cyber exploits.

WikiLeaks said it was refraining from disclosing usable code from CIA&#39;s cyber arsenal &quot;until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA&rsquo;s program and how such &lsquo;weapons&rsquo; should be analysed, disarmed and published&quot;.

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

WikiLeaks said on Tuesday that the documents showed that the CIA hoarded serious security vulnerabilities rather than share them with the public, as called for under a process established by President Barack Obama.

Rob Knake, a former official who dealt with the issue under Obama, said he had not seen evidence in what was published to support that conclusion.

The process &quot;is not a policy of unilateral disarmament in cyberspace. The mere fact that the CIA may have exploited zero-day [previously undisclosed] vulnerabilities should not surprise anyone,&quot; said Knake, now at the Council on Foreign Relations.

US&nbsp;officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not know where WikiLeaks might have obtained the material.

In a press release, the group said, &quot;The archive appears to have been circulated among former US&nbsp;government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive&quot;.

US&nbsp;intelligence agencies have suffered a series of security breaches, including Snowden&#39;s.

In 2010, US&nbsp;military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning provided more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to Wikileaks.

Last month, former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin was indicted on charges of taking highly sensitive government materials over a course of 20 years, storing the secrets in his home.

(WION with inputs from Reuters)

This WikiLeaks dump embarrasses US intelligence at a time Trump is at war with them. Some US intel think WikiLeaks is a Russian front

WikiLeaks on Tuesday published what it said were thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions about hacking techniques used over several years, renewing concerns about the security of consumer electronics and embarrassing the US intelligence agency. The discussion transcripts showed that CIA hackers could get into Apple Inc iPhones, Google Inc Android devices and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software. Cyber security experts disagreed about the extent of the fallout from the data dump, but said a lot would depend on whether WikiLeaks followed through on a threat to publish the actual hacking tools that could do damage. Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials, dated between 2013 and 2016, appeared to be legitimate. Recent US-Russia context This comes at a time when President Donald Trump is in a battle with the US spy agencies, who he has likened to "Nazi Germany", who are investigating him for ties to Russia. Trump has claimed, without citing any evidence, that he was wiretapped in Trump Tower before the election. Like to remind that I've been calling out Wikileaks as a Kremlin front since mid-2013. Took epic shit for speaking truth. Believe me now? — John Schindler (@20committee) March 7, 2017 × US intelligence agencies have said that WikiLeaks has ties to Russia's security services. During the 2016 US presidential campaign, WikiLeaks published internal emails of top Democratic Party officials, which the agencies said were hacked by Moscow as part of a coordinated influence campaign to help Republican Donald Trump win the presidency. WikiLeaks has denied ties to Russian spy agencies. Trump praised WikiLeaks during the campaign, often citing hacked emails it published to bolster his attacks on Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton. WikiLeaks' dump about the CIA was released the same day it came to light that Donald Trump himself met with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, on April 27, before a major foreign policy Speech. Trump has repeatedly claimed that neither he nor anyone on his campaign had contact with Russian officials. Four other members of his administration talked to Russian officials. Back to the hack A longtime intelligence contractor with expertise in US hacking tools told Reuters the documents included correct "cover" terms describing active cyber programs. Among the most noteworthy WikiLeaks claims is that the Central Intelligence Agency, in partnership with other US and foreign agencies, has been able to bypass the encryption on popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal. The files did not indicate the actual encryption of Signal or other secure messaging apps had been compromised. The information in what WikiLeaks said were 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments appears to represent the latest breach in recent years of classified material from US intelligence agencies. Security experts differed over how much the disclosures could damage US cyber espionage. Many said that, while harmful, they do not compare to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's revelations in 2013 of mass NSA data collection. "This is a big dump about extremely sophisticated tools that can be used to target individual user devices...I haven’t yet come across the mass exploiting of mobile devices," said Tarah Wheeler, senior director of engineering and principal security advocate for Symantec. Stuart McClure, CEO of Cylance, an Irvine, California, cyber security firm, said that one of the most significant disclosures shows how CIA hackers cover their tracks by leaving electronic trails suggesting they are from Russia, China and Iran rather than the United States. Other revelations show how the CIA took advantage of vulnerabilities that are known, if not widely publicised. In one case, the documents say, US and British personnel, under a program known as Weeping Angel, developed ways to take over a Samsung smart television, making it appear it was off when in fact it was recording conversations in the room. The CIA and White House declined comment. "We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents," CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement. Google declined to comment on the purported hacking of its Android platform, but said it was investigating the matter. Snowden on Twitter said the files amount to the first public evidence that the US government secretly buys software to exploit technology, referring to a table published by WikiLeaks that appeared to list various Apple iOS flaws purchased by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Apple Inc did not respond to a request for comment. The documents refer to means for accessing phones directly in order to catch messages before they are protected by end-to-end encryption tools like Signal. Signal inventor Moxie Marlinspike said he took that as "confirmation that what we’re doing is working". Signal and the like are "pushing intelligence agencies from a world of undetectable mass surveillance to a world where they have to use expensive, high-risk, extremely targeted attacks". CIA cyber programs The CIA in recent years underwent a restructuring to focus more on cyber warfare to keep pace with the increasing digital sophistication of foreign adversaries. The spy agency is prohibited by law from collecting intelligence that details domestic activities of Americans and is generally restricted in how it may gather any US data for counterintelligence purposes. The documents published Tuesday appeared to supply specific details to what has been long-known in the abstract: US intelligence agencies, like their allies and adversaries, are constantly working to discover and exploit flaws in any manner of technology products. Unlike the Snowden leaks, which revealed the NSA was secretly collecting details of telephone calls by ordinary Americans, the new WikiLeaks material did not appear to contain material that would fundamentally change what is publicly known about cyber espionage. WikiLeaks, led by Julian Assange, said its publication of the documents on the hacking tools was the first in a series of releases drawing from a data set that includes several hundred million lines of code and includes the CIA's "entire hacking capacity". The documents only include snippets of computer code, not the full programs that would be needed to conduct cyber exploits. WikiLeaks said it was refraining from disclosing usable code from CIA's cyber arsenal "until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA’s program and how such ‘weapons’ should be analysed, disarmed and published". WikiLeaks said on Tuesday that the documents showed that the CIA hoarded serious security vulnerabilities rather than share them with the public, as called for under a process established by President Barack Obama. Rob Knake, a former official who dealt with the issue under Obama, said he had not seen evidence in what was published to support that conclusion. The process "is not a policy of unilateral disarmament in cyberspace. The mere fact that the CIA may have exploited zero-day [previously undisclosed] vulnerabilities should not surprise anyone," said Knake, now at the Council on Foreign Relations. US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not know where WikiLeaks might have obtained the material. In a press release, the group said, "The archive appears to have been circulated among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive". US intelligence agencies have suffered a series of security breaches, including Snowden's. In 2010, US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning provided more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to Wikileaks. Last month, former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin was indicted on charges of taking highly sensitive government materials over a course of 20 years, storing the secrets in his home. (WION with inputs from Reuters)

WikiLeaks says it releases files proving CIA can spy on all iPhones, Androids

Julian Assange will be questioned next week over longstanding rape accusations, Sweden&#39;s public prosecutor&#39;s office announced Monday, saying an Ecuadorian prosecutor would visit the WikiLeaks founder in the embassy where he has been holed up since 2012.

Through his lawyer Assange welcomed the news saying he was looking forward to the &quot;chance to clear his name&quot;.

The Swedish authorities said one of the prosecutors on the case, Ingrid Isgren, as well as a Swedish police inspector would also attend the questioning on November 14 and report the findings to Sweden.&nbsp;

&quot;A DNA sample will also be taken, provided that Julian Assange agrees to it,&quot; the prosecutor&#39;s office said in a statement.&nbsp;

The 45-year-old whistleblower sought refuge in Ecuador&#39;s embassy in London in June 2012, fleeing allegations of rape and sexual assault in Sweden dating back to 2010. Assange denies the claims.

An Australian national, he had refused to travel to Sweden for questioning due to concerns that he would then be extradited to the United States over WikiLeaks&#39; release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

&quot;We have requested this interview repeatedly since 2010,&quot; his lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP.&nbsp;

&quot;Julian Assange has always wanted to tell his version to the Swedish police. He wants a chance to clear his name,&quot; he said.

&quot;We hope the investigation will be closed then.&quot;

The lawyer added the &quot;shape of the questioning is under discussion.&quot;&nbsp;

A first hearing scheduled for October with the prosecutor Toainga Wilson had been postponed at Assange&#39;s request, citing &quot;his rights to the protection and defense of his person,&quot; according to Ecuadorian prosecutors.

Swedish prosecutors have dropped a sexual assault probe, concerning another woman, against Assange last year after the five-year statute of limitations expired.

But they still want to question him about the 2010 rape allegation, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations.

Assange insists the sexual encounters in question were consensual.

Last month, the Swedish prosecutor&#39;s office rejected Assange&#39;s request to temporarily suspend his arrest warrant so he could leave the Ecuadoran embassy to attend the funeral of mentor Gavin MacFayden.

WikiLeaks has meanwhile returned to the spotlight in recent weeks with the damaging leak of tens of thousands of emails from the US Democratic Party and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton&#39;s campaign. 
 
(AFP)

The WikiLeaks founder sought refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London in June 2012

Julian Assange will be questioned next week over longstanding rape accusations, Sweden's public prosecutor's office announced Monday, saying an Ecuadorian prosecutor would visit the WikiLeaks founder in the embassy where he has been holed up since 2012. Through his lawyer Assange welcomed the news saying he was looking forward to the "chance to clear his name". The Swedish authorities said one of the prosecutors on the case, Ingrid Isgren, as well as a Swedish police inspector would also attend the questioning on November 14 and report the findings to Sweden. "A DNA sample will also be taken, provided that Julian Assange agrees to it," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. The 45-year-old whistleblower sought refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London in June 2012, fleeing allegations of rape and sexual assault in Sweden dating back to 2010. Assange denies the claims. An Australian national, he had refused to travel to Sweden for questioning due to concerns that he would then be extradited to the United States over WikiLeaks' release of 500,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We have requested this interview repeatedly since 2010," his lawyer Per Samuelsson told AFP. "Julian Assange has always wanted to tell his version to the Swedish police. He wants a chance to clear his name," he said. "We hope the investigation will be closed then." The lawyer added the "shape of the questioning is under discussion." A first hearing scheduled for October with the prosecutor Toainga Wilson had been postponed at Assange's request, citing "his rights to the protection and defense of his person," according to Ecuadorian prosecutors. Swedish prosecutors have dropped a sexual assault probe, concerning another woman, against Assange last year after the five-year statute of limitations expired. But they still want to question him about the 2010 rape allegation, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations. Assange insists the sexual encounters in question were consensual. Last month, the Swedish prosecutor's office rejected Assange's request to temporarily suspend his arrest warrant so he could leave the Ecuadoran embassy to attend the funeral of mentor Gavin MacFayden. WikiLeaks has meanwhile returned to the spotlight in recent weeks with the damaging leak of tens of thousands of emails from the US Democratic Party and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign. (AFP)

Julian Assange to be questioned by Ecuador over rape allegations

WikiLeaks on Monday claimed Ecuador cut the internet connection of its founder Julian Assange, who is staying at the country&#39;s embassy in London, claiming the move was in response to &nbsp;the group&#39;s publication of documents related to US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

&quot;We can confirm Ecuador cut off&nbsp;Assange&#39;s internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton&#39;s Goldman Sachs speeches,&quot; WikiLeaks said on Twitter.

The anti-security website had previously said the internet connection had been &quot;intentionally severed by a state party&quot; in response to the Clinton leaks.

&quot;We have activated the appropriate contingency plans,&quot; WikiLeaks wrote earlier on Monday.

Three paid speeches to Goldman Sachs by US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were released by WikiLeaks on Saturday, followed by the publication of further documents on Monday.

Clinton&#39;s campaign did not contest the authenticity of the remarks, part of a huge trove of documents hacked from the emails of campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks.

The Clinton camp has blamed the Russian government for the hacks, a view shared by the US government, and accused the anti-secrecy website of seeking to help Clinton&#39;s Republican rival for the presidency Donald Trump.

Assange&nbsp;has spent more than four years living in Ecuador&#39;s embassy in London, to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden over an allegation of rape.

The 45-year-old Australian and his supporters believe the allegation is a guise to have Assange&nbsp;extradited from Stockholm to the US where he could be tried for publishing government secrets.

Responding to the internet connectivity claims by WikiLeaks, Ecuador reaffirmed its 2012 decision to grant asylum to&nbsp;Assange.

&quot;The protection of the Ecuadorian State will continue as long as the circumstances that led to the granting of that asylum remain,&quot; the foreign ministry said in a statement.

(AFP)

The WikiLeaks founder's internet access was allegedly blocked shortly after publication of Hillary Clinton's Goldman Sachs speeches

WikiLeaks on Monday claimed Ecuador cut the internet connection of its founder Julian Assange, who is staying at the country's embassy in London, claiming the move was in response to the group's publication of documents related to US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. "We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speeches," WikiLeaks said on Twitter. The anti-security website had previously said the internet connection had been "intentionally severed by a state party" in response to the Clinton leaks. "We have activated the appropriate contingency plans," WikiLeaks wrote earlier on Monday. Three paid speeches to Goldman Sachs by US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were released by WikiLeaks on Saturday, followed by the publication of further documents on Monday. Clinton's campaign did not contest the authenticity of the remarks, part of a huge trove of documents hacked from the emails of campaign chairman John Podesta by WikiLeaks. The Clinton camp has blamed the Russian government for the hacks, a view shared by the US government, and accused the anti-secrecy website of seeking to help Clinton's Republican rival for the presidency Donald Trump. Assange has spent more than four years living in Ecuador's embassy in London, to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden over an allegation of rape. The 45-year-old Australian and his supporters believe the allegation is a guise to have Assange extradited from Stockholm to the US where he could be tried for publishing government secrets. Responding to the internet connectivity claims by WikiLeaks, Ecuador reaffirmed its 2012 decision to grant asylum to Assange. "The protection of the Ecuadorian State will continue as long as the circumstances that led to the granting of that asylum remain," the foreign ministry said in a statement. (AFP)

Ecuador cut off Julian Assange's net connection, WikiLeaks claims

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