Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, was arrested on Thursday by London’s Metropolitan Police service, which said in a statement officers were “invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government’s withdrawal of asylum.”
Video of Assange being dragged from the embassy was captured on a live stream set up by Ruptly, a Russian government news agency.
Wikileaks confirmed that Assange was arrested inside the embassy.
URGENT
Julian Assange did not "walk out of the embassy". The Ecuadorian ambassador invited British police into the embassy and he was immediately arrested.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 11, 2019
Assange, 47, will be held at a central London police station until an appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court can be arranged, the police said. The force explained that it was acting on a warrant issued by that court after Assange took refuge in the embassy in 2012, violating bail conditions by not returning to court for a hearing on his attempt to resist extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning on sexual assault allegations.
In May 2017, Swedish prosecutors announced they were closing their investigation into the sexual assault allegations in light of Assange’s asylum and the time that had elapsed.
Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, released a video statement explaining his decision to withdraw the diplomatic asylum granted to Assange by his predecessor, accusing Assange of “discourteous and aggressive behavior,” “hostile and threatening declarations against Ecuador and especially the transgression of international treaties.”
“He particularly violated the norm or not intervening in the internal affairs of other states,” Moreno added.
Moreno also said that British authorities had offered him a guarantee that Assange would not be extradited to a country where he could be tortured or face the death penalty. That seemed like a clear reference to the United States, where, the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia accidentally revealed in November that it had filed a secret indictment charging Assange with crimes related to Wikileaks disclosures.
Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who was convicted of leaking military and diplomatic files to Wikileaks before having her sentence commuted by former President Barack Obama, is currently in jail for refusing to testify about her decision in 2010.
Wikileaks has claimed in recent weeks that Ecuador had turned against Assange because of what Moreno took to be Assange’s part in the alleged hacking of his own phone.
Corruption investigation opened against Ecuador's president Moreno, after purported leaked contents of his iPhone (Whatsapp, Telegram) & Gmail were published. New York Times reported that Moreno tried to sell Assange to US for debt relief. https://t.co/0KFcBrnUfr
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 25, 2019
Last week, after private photographs of Moreno and his family were posted online, the president told the Ecuadorean Radio Broadcasters’ Association that Assange did not have the right to “hack private accounts or phones” while enjoying diplomatic asylum.
Although Moreno did not directly connect Assange to that leak, Reuters reported that his government said it believed the photos were shared by WikiLeaks.
Assange’s arrest was condemned by many supporters, including Edward Snowden, who reminded journalists that the United Nations had “formally ruled his detention to be arbitrary, a violation of human rights.”
Important background for journalists covering the arrest of Julian #Assange by Ecuador: the United Nations formally ruled his detention to be arbitrary, a violation of human rights. They have repeatedly issued statements calling for him to walk free–including very recently. pic.twitter.com/fr12rYdWUF
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 11, 2019