11 April 2019 - Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange arrested from Ecuador embassy in London
Julian Assange: Wikileaks co-founder arrested in London
(BBC News, 11/04/2019)
Mr Assange took refuge in the embassy seven years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that has since been dropped.
The Met Police said he was arrested for failing to surrender to the court and following a US extradition request.
Ecuador's president said it withdrew his asylum after repeated violations of international conventions.
But Wikileaks tweeted that Ecuador had acted illegally in terminating Mr Assange's political asylum "in violation of international law".
Julian Assange's arrest a 'dark moment for press freedom', says fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden
George Martin, Mailonline (Daily Mail, 11/04/2019)
US whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned the arrest of Julian Assange is a 'dark moment for press freedom'.
WikiLeaks founder Assange, 47, was arrested by police in London this morning after Ecuador dramatically withdrew his political asylum seven years after he first entered the embassy.
Soon after his arrest, Snowden tweeted: 'Images of Ecuador's ambassador inviting the UK's secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of-like it or not-award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books.
Julian Assange arrest: Ecuadorian embassy guest caused an unexpected rift between countries
Catherine Philp, Diplomatic correspondent (The Times, 11/04/2019)
Little had ever troubled relations between Britain and Ecuador until Julian Assange took up residence in the Ecuadorian embassy.
His decision to seek political asylum there in 2012, and Ecuador’s decision to grant it, plunged diplomatic relations to an unexpected low.
Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president at the time, welcomed Mr Assange as an anti-establishment hero to burnish his left-wing populist credentials, inviting him to live in his country.
Ricardo Patiño, the foreign minister at the time, praised Mr Assange’s “dedicated defence of freedom of expression”. He said that the Wikileaks founder was right to fear persecution by the United States.
How the Trump Administration Stepped Up Pursuit of WikiLeaks’s Assange
Please note: this article was published in 2018
Julian E. Barnes, Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage (The New York Times, 16/11/2018)
Soon after he took over as C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo privately told lawmakers about a new target for American spies: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
Intent on finding out more about Mr. Assange’s dealings with Russian intelligence, the C.I.A. began last year to conduct traditional espionage against the organization, according to American officials. At the same time, federal law enforcement officials were reconsidering Mr. Assange’s designation as a journalist and debating whether to charge him with a crime.
Mr. Pompeo and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions unleashed an aggressive campaign against Mr. Assange, reversing an Obama-era view of WikiLeaks as a journalistic entity.
Assange is a scapegoat, distraction for scandal-ridden Ecuadorian government
Pablo Vivanco (RT, 11/04/2019)
As he faces a major corruption probe, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno is preparing to meet another demand from Washington by booting WikiLeaks journalist Julian Assange out of Ecuador’s embassy in London.
Times were different when the WikiLeaks founder walked into Ecuador’s London embassy seeking asylum in 2012.
Fearing that his native Australia wouldn’t protect him from extradition to the United States, where he faces imprisonment or even execution, Assange appealed to Ecuador’s then-president Rafael Correa to grant him refuge from “political persecution.”