LONDON (AP) WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was forcibly bundled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and into a waiting British police van today, setting up a potential court battle over attempts to extradite him to the U.S. to face charges related to the publication of tens of thousands of secret government documents.
British police arrested Assange after the South American nation decided to revoke the political asylum that had given Assange sanctuary for almost seven years. Ecuadors President Lenin Moreno said he took the action due to repeated violations to international conventions and daily life.
In Washington, the U.S. Justice Department accused Assange with conspiring with Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer at the Pentagon. The charge was announced after Assange was taken into custody.
His lawyer has previously said that Assange planned to fight any U.S. charges against him.
Assange took refuge in the embassy in 2012 after he was released on bail in Britain while facing extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations that have since been dropped.
British police said today that Assange had been arrested for breaching his bail conditions in Britain and in relation to the U.S. arrest request.
Moreno, speaking in a video released on Twitter, said the country was no longer willing to give Assange protection. Other Ecuadorian officials in Quito accused supporters of WikiLeaks and two Russian hackers of attempting to destabilize their country.
The discourteous and aggressive behavior of Mr. Julian Assange, the hostile and threatening declarations of its allied organization, against Ecuador, and especially the transgression of international treaties, have led the situation to a point where the asylum of Mr. Assange is unsustainable and no longer viable, Moreno said.
Assange for years has been under U.S. Justice Department scrutiny for years for WikiLeaks role in publishing thousands of government secrets. He was an important figure in the special counsel Robert Muellers Russia probe as investigators examined how WikiLeaks obtained emails that were stolen from Hillary Clintons presidential campaign and Democratic groups.
Assange had not come out of the embassy in London for almost seven years because he feared arrest and extradition to the United States for publishing classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks. Although Sweden has dropped the sexual assault case that first led to Assanges arrest in Britain, U.K. authorities said he would be rearrested if he ever left the embassy because he skipped bail in the original case.
Video posted online by Ruptly, a news service of Russia Today, showed several men in suits around Assange, pulling him out of the embassy building and loading him into a police van today while uniformed British police officers formed a passageway. Assange sported a full beard and slicked-back grey hair.
WikiLeaks quickly drew attention to U.S. interest in Assange and said that Ecuador had illegally terminated Assanges political asylum in violation of international law.
Powerful actors, including CIA, are engaged in a sophisticated effort to de-humanise, de-legitimize and imprison him, the group said in a tweet over a photo of Assanges smiling face.
But Moreno appeared to suggest that a swift extradition to America was not likely.
In line with our strong commitment to human rights and international law, I requested Great Britain to guarantee that Mr. Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could face torture or the death penalty, Moreno said. The British government has confirmed it in writing, in accordance with its own rules.
