An Ecuadorean judge on Thursday ordered that a Swedish citizen and personal friend of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange be freed, two months after he was detained for alleged participation in a hacking attempt on the government.
The US Justice Department has formally asked Britain to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face charges that he conspired to hack US government computers and violated an espionage law, Britain has confirmed.
Julian Assange used the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a “centre for spying”, the country's leader has said. Lenin Moreno also said no other nation had influenced the decision to revoke the WikiLeaks founder's asylum, which he said followed violations by Assange.
British police dragged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of Ecuador’s embassy on Thursday after his seven-year asylum was revoked for his extradition to the United States for one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information.
For the United Nations (UN), the United Kingdom arrested “arbitrarily” WikiLeaks’s co-founder, Julian Assange, on Thursday and warned that by allowing his arrest, Ecuador has put the Australian journalist at risk of being extradited to the United States, “Exposing him to the risk of serious violations of human rights.”
Former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has been jailed for refusing to testify before an investigation into Wikileaks. A Virginia judge ordered her taken into custody until the grand jury's work is finished or she decides to testify. Manning said she shared everything she knows during her court-martial.
After the United Kingdom has guaranteed that the founder of Wikileaks will not be extradited to the US, President Lenín Moreno invited Julian Assange to leave Ecuador's embassy in London, because his time of asylum in the diplomatic building after six years is about to run out.
Ecuador does not plan to intervene with the British government on behalf of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to negotiate a way for him to leave the country's embassy in London, where he has lived under asylum since 2012, Ecuador's foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“Julian Assange launched a case Friday accusing the government of Ecuador of violating his fundamental rights and freedoms,” read a WikiLeaks statement. The case has been slated to be heard in a domestic court next week.
Ecuador has said its president will not discuss the future of Julian Assange during a visit to the UK. Lenin Moreno was scheduled to speak in London and later travel to Scotland to the University of Edinburgh. He will also address businessmen interested in investing in Ecuador.