9 hours agoWill Ecuador hand over Wikipedia's founder to British authorities?
Periskopi(8 years ago)
(8 years ago)Ecuador appears to be finishing plans to withdraw asylum protection for the founder of Wikipedia, Julian Assange, and from early next week, it is expected to pull it out of its embassy in London and to hand over British authorities, according to media reports. Assange, 47, has been hiding in embassys since the year [...]
Assange, 47, has been hiding in embassys since 2012, after being sheltered to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted to be questioned about charges of assault and sexual rape.
Although Sweden has dismissed its investigation into rape charges, Assange has decided not to leave the embassy for the concern that the US will immediately request its arrest and extradition on the flow of classified documents to WikipediaLeaks from Chelsea Manning.
WikiLeaks is also the focus of the investigation by special adviser Robert Mueller in Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, disseminationing hackers.
Ecuador has grown increasingly dissatisfied with the asylum agreement in recent months. In March, Ecuador allowed Assange to use the internet from the embassy for violating an agreement that signed at the end of 2017 not to use his communications to interfere with other states' affairs.
Ecuador has strengthened its stance after President Lenin Moreno's May elections, which has described Assang as a “haker”, an inherited “problem” and a “safe in shoes”.
Assange, an Australian computer programmer, particularly angered Ecuador by angering the Spanish government with his support for separatist leaders in the Spanish region of Catalonia, who wanted to secede last year.
The Times of London reported last week that British ministers and senior foreign ministry officials were “locked in discussions on the fate of Assange”.
In addition, Russian news pressure quoted unidentified sources as saying Ecuador is ready to hand over Assange to British authorities “in the weeks or even the coming days”.
Glen Greenwald, editor of The Intercept, announced on Saturday that he expects Moreno to finalise an agreement with British authorities during his trip to London on Friday for a summit of limited global capacity. Greenwald said Moreno also plans to travel to Madrid during his trip.
Greenwald cited an unidentified source near the Equadorian Foreign Ministry and the president's office, confirming that Moreno is close to an agreement earlier this week.
Greenwald, former reporter of The Guardian, is a journalist and author who writes extensively on national security issues. He published a series of articles about US and British monitoring programmes based in part on classified documents published by Edward Snowden, a single US contractor for the National Security Agency, who fled the country and was taken refuge in Russia
