Julian Assange: Transparency icon or enemy of the state?

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by the British Police on Thursday after being evicted from the Ecuadorean Embassy where he had been living since 2012. He was arrested after Ecuador withdrew his diplomatic asylum for "repeated violation of international conventions and a protocol of coexistence".

Assange's relations with his hosts turned frosty since Ecuador accused him of leaking information about President Lenin Moreno's personal life. Moreno has said Assange has violated the terms of his asylum.

To some, Assange is a hero for exposing what supporters cast as abuse of power by modern states and for championing free speech. But to others, he is a dangerous rebel who has undermined the security of the United States.

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Assange, an Australian national, was arrested in Britain in December 2010 on allegations of sexual assault and rape in Sweden, claims he strongly denied, saying they were politically motivated.

Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden. Before the claims were dropped in 2017, Assange expressed fears that any extradition to Sweden could see his eventual transfer to the United States to face trial for the leaks.

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

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

Later that year, the group released over 90,000 secret documents detailing the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan, followed by almost 400,000 internal US military reports detailing operations in Iraq.

More than 2,50,000 classified cables from US embassies followed, then almost three million dating back to 1973.

Born in Townsville, Queensland, in 1971, Assange has described a nomadic childhood and claims to have attended 37 schools before settling in Melbourne.

As a teenager he discovered a talent for computer hacking, and while has pled guilty to 25 such offences, he has only ever walked away with fines.

He created WikiLeaks in 2006 with a group of like-minded activists and IT experts, to provide a secure way for whistleblowers to leak information.

A confident speaker, he became its figurehead - and a lightning rod for criticism.