Ecuador revokes asylum, allows arrest of WikiLeaks founder Assange

Once an honored guest, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was evicted from Ecuador’s embassy in London and arrested Thursday, setting the stage for his extradition to the United States on charges of computer hacking and publishing one of the largest troves of classified and secret information in American history.

How tiny Ecuador went from being a safe haven for the digital provocateur to handing him over to U.K. police, has to do with the shifting political tides in the South American country — and suspicions that Assange was working with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and others to undermine his benefactor.

On Thursday, Ecuadorean President Lenín Moreno said his nation had been a “generous country with open arms” that had housed Assange for almost seven years, but could no longer accept his antics.

In a statement, he said Assange, 47, had repeatedly been “disrespectful and aggressive” to embassy staff and violated international conventions on asylum as he lived at the small diplomatic compound.

“Ecuador fulfilled its obligations in accordance with international law,” Moreno said. “Mr. Assange repeatedly violated the rules of the convention of diplomatic asylum. … In particular, he violated the rule of not interfering in the internal affairs of other states.”

The latest incident occurred in January 2019, when WikiLeaks released sensitive documents about the Vatican after the organization’s staff had been holding meetings with Assange, Moreno said.

“This and other publications confirmed the world’s suspicions that Mr. Assange remains tied to WikiLeaks and, therefore, the organization’s meddling in the affairs of other states,” he said.

Ecuador also accused Assange of installing unauthorized electronic equipment at the embassy, blocking security cameras and accessing secured documents stored on the compound.

Assange — bearded and looking gaunt — was hauled out of the red brick building by police on Thursday shouting “The U.K. must resist!”

On Twitter, WikiLeaks said Ecuador had “illegally terminated Assange’s political asylum in violation of international law.”

On Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department confirmed what had long been rumored: that it is seeking Assange’s extradition on charges of computer hacking.

The indictment alleges that Assange and former U.S. Army analyst Chelsea Manning conspired to hack into U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications. The breach allowed WikiLeaks to publish millions of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables.

Moreno said he had been given assurances by England that Assange wouldn’t be sent to a country where he might “suffer torture or the death penalty,” a promise that would seem to rule out extraditing him to the United States.

But some believe Assange is also tied to a series of leaks accusing Moreno’s family members of holding offshore accounts. The so-called “INA Papers” scandal is threatening to undermine the president’s political support and his attempts to overhaul the economy of the deeply indebted country.

Last month, Ecuadorean Secretary of Communications Andrés Michelena told CNN en Español that there were indications that Assange, former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Venezuela’s Maduro were working together to undermine Moreno through leaks.

“The three of them are working under the policy of destabilizing the government of President Moreno,” Michelena said.

On Thursday, Interior Minister María Paula Romo said the government had been tracking the movements of a WikiLeaks member and two Russian hackers who are living in Ecuador and who she suggested might be part of the destabilization plot.

Correa, who now lives in Belgium, said Assange’s arrest was retaliation for exposing Moreno’s corruption.

“The greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American History, Lenín Moreno allowed the British police to enter our embassy in London and arrest Assange,” Correa wrote on Twitter. “Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget.”

WikiLeaks was launched in 2006 as a whistle-blowing website where documents could be posted anonymously. But the organization and its platinum-haired founder caught global attention in 2010 when they began releasing the State Department cables provided by Manning.

The so-called “Cablegate” scandal roiled Latin America and led Ecuador to eject U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges after she suggested in one of the communiqués that Correa was turning a blind eye to police corruption.

Building on his close ties with Correa, Assange arrived at the country’s London embassy in June of 2012 trying to evade arrest by Swedish authorities who wanted to question him on sexual assault allegations. At the time, Ecuadorean authorities hailed him as a persecuted free-speech advocate and said he was welcome to live in Ecuador, but British authorities refused to give him safe passage, even after Sweden dropped its investigation.

Assange’s relationship with the country cooled dramatically when Correa’s successor, Moreno, took office in 2017. Since then, the government has repeatedly warned Assange that WikiLeaks’ work was jeopardizing Ecuador’s diplomatic relationships around the world.

During his years at the embassy, Assange became known for his antics. Diplomats accused him of not bathing and being obnoxious. On Thursday, Romo, the interior minister, said the previous administration had put up with Assange “putting feces on the walls of the embassy.” But Assange also adopted a cat with its own twitter following and occasionally received visits from Bay Watch star Pamela Anderson.

In an expletive-filled tweet, Anderson said she was “in shock” and blamed Ecuador and England for betraying Assange.

“How could you UK?” she wrote. “Of course - you are America’s bi*** and you need a diversion from your idiotic Brexit bull****.”

New Jersey Democrat and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez said WikiLeaks has “continued to play a destructive role by directly interfering in democratic elections and referendums around the world, most troubling of which is WikiLeaks’ collaboration with Russia to directly interfere in the United States presidential election in 2016.”

“I commend Ecuadorian President Moreno for holding Julian Assange accountable for his repeated abuses of the asylum granted by Ecuador in 2012,” he said. “As we await for Mr. Assange to be extradited to the U.S., it is my hope that our justice system holds him accountable for his crimes.”

This story was originally published April 11, 2019 at 10:05 AM.