How long is Julian Assange going to prison for, why was he arrested, and did the WikiLeaks founder have a panic button at the Ecuador embassy?
WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange was arrested by police inside Ecuador’s embassy in London after seven years in hiding. The 47-year-old Australian was ejected on April 11, 2019 – here’s what you need to know. Who is Julian Assange? The 47-year-old is an Australian who spearheaded the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks to expose the inner workings of […]
WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange was arrested by police inside Ecuador’s embassy in London after seven years in hiding.
The 47-year-old Australian was ejected on April 11, 2019 – here’s what you need to know.
Who is Julian Assange?
The 47-year-old is an Australian who spearheaded the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks to expose the inner workings of governments, military and trade deals around the world.
Assange is a hacker, freedom of information advocate and considers himself a political refugee.
He was born in Queensland in 1971 and attended the city’s Central university where he studied programming, mathematics and physics.
Assange has a software designer son named Daniel with his ex-wife Teresa.
Why was Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy?
Assange was visiting Sweden in August 2010 to speak at a conference when he met two women and had sex with them.
They accused him of rape and molestation and Assange was questioned but never charged over the allegations.
He was initially told he could leave the country, but in November of that year, Interpol issued a Red Notice for his arrest.
Assange has always denied the claims.
He gave himself up a week later and appeared before a judge in Westminster, where his supporters stumped up £240,000 for his bail.
In June 2012, Swedish prosecutors called for him to be extradited – a measure his lawyers opposed in case he was sent to the US.
On June 19, 2012, he fled bail and applied for asylum in Ecuador, through the embassy in Knightsbridge, London.
Why was he arrested?
The Ecuadorian authorities stated that Assange could remain in their embassy as long as he wished.
On February 6, 2018, Westminster Magistrates Court ruled to uphold Scotland Yard’s warrant for his arrest.
A UK judge told Assange that he should face the charges against him.
In a stinging attack on Assange, she said he appeared to “consider himself above the normal rules of law”.
The judge added: “Having weighed up the factors for and against and considered [Assange’s lawyer, Mark Summers’] arguments I find arrest is a proportionate response even though Mr Assange has restricted his own freedom for a number of years.”
In 2018, Ecuador closed off Assange’s communications with the outside world after the Australian breached an agreement he had made with the South American country a year earlier.
Its government said Assange’s behaviour online risked jeopardising the nation’s relationship with the UK.
On July 27, it was reported that Ecuador’s president said Assange must eventually leave the embassy.
Then in April 2019, Ecuador’s new president Lenin Moreno said the country was withdrawing Assange’s diplomatic immunity, meaning police were free to enter the embassy and arrest him.
On April 11, he was arrested by Met Police for “failing to surrender to the court”.
Since his arrest, Moreno has accused Assange of hosting numerous hackers at the embassy to give them directions on how to propagate information on topics important to him, and his financiers.
Ecuador has also revealed that it spent £5million keeping him holed up in London for seven years.
How long was he jailed for?
On May 1, 2019, Assange was jailed for 50 weeks for hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy and jumping bail.
The 47-year-old “apologised unreservedly” claiming he feared he would be “kidnapped” by the US because of his works with the whistle-blower website.
But Assange was jailed for close to the maximum one-year sentence as the judge told him he still “had a choice” and put himself deliberately out of reach of the law.
Assange’s lawyers today told Southwark Crown Court that he had been consumed by fears he would be kidnapped and “forcibly taken” to the US, which had indicted him over leaking of information with intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Assange’s defence lawyer Mark Summers QC, said: “As threats rained down on him from America, they overshadowed everything as far as he was concerned.
“They dominated his thoughts. They were not invented by him, they were gripping him throughout.”
Mr Summers said Assange’s fears that he could face extradition from Sweden to the US were well founded and “not a figment of his imagination”.
Sweden at the time, he said, had a “well documented and unfortunate history” of sending “people to states where they were at significant risk of ill treatment including torture and death”.
Will Assange be extradited?
He now faces a battle against extradition to America where he was today charged in his absence with “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the US”.
District Judge Michael Snow described Assange’s claim he’s never had a fair hearing as “laughable” before ruling the US must produce an extradition case by June 12.
Earlier the US Department of Justice called for his return to the country and warned he could face up to five years in prison over the government leak allegations.
Scotland Yard earlier confirmed he is being held on behalf of the US authorities – where he is wanted for espionage – as well as breaching his bail conditions in Britain.
America’s involvement raises further questions over the forthcoming battle to be had on his extradition – as his lawyers fear he will face the death penalty if sent to the US.
But Ecuadorian President Moreno said today Britain had confirmed it would not extradite Assange to a country where he could face the death sentence.
After the arrest, Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan said Assange will face “justice in the proper way in the UK” and it will be “for the courts” to decide what happens next.
He insisted Assange would not be extradited to any country where he would stand to face the death penalty.
Did the WikiLeaks founder have a panic button at the Ecuador Embassy?
Assange was arrested in a way that ensured he wouldn’t be able to press a mysterious panic button he claimed would have “devastating consequences” to the Ecuadorean embassy.
It has been revealed that his swift arrest was designed to stop him pressing an emergency panic button.
Ecuador’s foreign minister Jose Valencia said audio recordings from a few months ago captured Assange threatening ambassador Jaime Merchan with pressing the button which would have “devastating consequences” for the embassy if he was arrested.
More on Assange
British authorities were told about the threat — which cops acted on by not allowing Assange to return to his room in the embassy during his arrest to carry out any secret plans.
But it’s not yet clear what was meant by the panic button threat.
A previous version of this story said that Assange had sex with two men who later accused him of rape. In actual fact they were women. The story was corrected on March 10, 2016.
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