Crime
How US orchestrated Assange’s asylum withdrawal, arrest
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s seven-year hideout in Ecuador’s London embassy dramatically ended when British police dragged him out and arrested him on a US extradition request.
Footage from the Russian video news agency Ruptly showed Assange — his worn face framed by a bushy white beard and shock of silver hair — being hustled out of the building by burly men in suits and pulled into a waiting police van Thursday.
The scene unfolded outside the plush central London building that has been Assange’s refuge from the authorities since 2012.
“No one is above the law,” British Prime Minister Theresa May said to cheers in parliament.
The drama came after Ecuador — under pro-US President Lenin Moreno, increasingly frustrated with Assange’s stay — pulled its asylum and cancelled his citizenship after earlier curbing his internet and mobile phone access.
British police said Assange had been initially arrested for breaching his bail conditions in 2012 and then “further arrested on behalf of the United States”, where he is wanted to face hacking charges.
His London lawyer Jennifer Robinson said Assange would be “contesting and fighting” his extradition.
Robinson said Assange had also told her to pass a message to his supporters that his repeated warnings about the risk of US extradition had been proved right.
“He said: ‘I told you so’,” Robinson told reporters and supporters, including fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, outside Westminster Magistrates Court.
The pony-tailed 47-year-old Australian gave a thumbs-up sign to the press gallery in court and opened up a copy of Gore Vidal’s book “History of the National Security State” about the US military-industrial complex before his hearing began.
Judge Michael Snow pronounced Assange guilty of breaching his bail conditions by sheltering in the embassy and remanded him in custody to face sentencing at an unspecified later date.
He faces up to a year in a British prison and will have his separate extradition case heard on May 2.
Assange yelled “this is unlawful” and “I am not leaving” during the arrest, the court was told.
Police struggled to handcuff him but eventually lifted him out exactly an hour after entering the embassy.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Assange would receive “no special treatment” from his home country.
AFP