JULIAN Assange was dramatically arrested by British cops today and dragged screaming from the Ecuadorian Embassy after seven years hiding inside.
The pale and bearded WikiLeaks founder, 47, was pulled out in handcuffs as Ecuador withdrew its asylum status – ending Assange’s 2,487 days holed up since 2012.
As he was hauled from the building – looking grey and clutching Gore Vidal’s History of the National Security State – he appeared to shout “The UK has no civility” and “the UK must resist”.
Until today, Assange hadn’t left the embassy since August 2012 – costing the British taxpayer more than £10m.
Assange took refuge there to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation – today one of his accusers demanded the case be reopened.
Dozens of officers swarmed his hideout this morning and pulled him down the steps, as he fought against the arrest.
Now seen with a full white beard and hair, he had feared stepping off Ecuador’s diplomatic soil would see him arrested and extradited to the US for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR:
Cops struggled to push him into a police van, as he screamed out and gestured with cuffed hands.
Assange’s lawyers have previously argued that he could face the death penalty if he was extradited to the US.
But Ecuadorian President Moreno said today Britain had confirmed it would not extradite Assange to a country that has the death sentence.
Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan today said Assange will face ‘justice in the proper way in the UK’ and it will be ‘for the courts’ to decide what happens next.
The US State Department has not commented on the arrest yet.
During his time in hiding Assange has been visited by numerous famous faces – most notably ex-Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, once rumoured to be his “lover”.
Today she tweeted her support for him – dubbing him a “hero” – after earlier retweeting an old photograph of him alongside the caption “truth will prevail” in Latin.
Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno said on Twitter: “In a sovereign decision Ecuador withdrew the asylum status to Julian Assange after his repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols.”
But WikiLeaks said he had acted illegally in terminating Assange’s political asylum “in violation of international law”, with the organisation accusing “powerful actors” of an effort to dehumanise it’s founder.
Edward Snowden today tweeted Assange’s detention was a “violation of his human rights”, as Russia brazenly accused Britain of “strangling freedom” following his arrest.
A Metropolitan Police statement said: “He has been taken into custody at a central London police station where he will remain, before being presented before Westminster Magistrates’ Court as soon as is possible.
“The MPS had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster Magistrates’ Court, and was invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government’s withdrawal of asylum.”
Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who is due to make a statement in the House of Commons on the arrest today, tweeted: “Nearly 7yrs after entering the Ecuadorean Embassy, I can confirm Julian Assange is now in police custody and rightly facing justice in the UK.
“I would like to thank Ecuador for its cooperation & @metpoliceuk for its professionalism. No one is above the law.”
Yesterday, Fidel Narvaez, the former Consul of Ecuador to London, said: “The Ecuadorian embassy is not protecting Assange any more.
“It is doing everything possible to end the asylum.”
Here are the key dates in the long-standing saga involving Wikileaks boss Julian Assange.
July 2010: Wikileaks releases some 720,000 classified military documents concerning US wars and diplomacy in Afghanistan and Iraq.
August 2010: An arrest warrent is issued for Assange for two separate allegations – one of rape and one of molestation – after he visits Sweden. He denies the allegations atfer being questioned by cops in Stockholm.
An international arrest warrant is issued by Swedish police through Interpol.
December 2010: Assange presents himself to London police and appears at an extradition hearing where he is remanded in custody. He is granted conditional bail at a hearing but is kept behind bars after Swedish authorities challenge the decision.
February 2011: British courts rule Assange should be extradicted to Sweden, denying this would breach his human rights.
June 2012: The Wikileaks chief enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London, requesting politicla asylum. Just 24 hours later Scotland Yard confirms he will be arrested for breaching his bail conditions.
August 2012: Ecuador officially grants Assange political asylum, allowing him to stay in the embassy – where he will remain for the next six and a half years.
Assange makes his first public appearnce on the balcony of the embassy and calls for the US government to end its witch hunt.
May 2017: Swedish prosecutors close their seven-year sex assault investigation, but British police say they would still arrest Assange is he leaves the embassy for breaching bail in 2012.
April 2019: Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno says Mr Assange has “repeatedly violated” the conditions of his asylum at the embassy.
11 April 2019: British cops arrest Assange at the embassy after his asylum is withdrawn – dragging him screaming from the main entrance.
Last week reports surfaced that the South American nation is tiring of his presence in the embassy.
President Moreno said Assange does not have the right to “hack private accounts or phones” and cannot intervene in the politics of other countries, especially those that have friendly relations with Ecuador.
Blackmailers have allegedly threatened to reveal sex secrets about Assange’s life inside the embassy as part of a €3 million (£2.6 million) extortion plot.
Wikileaks chiefs have accused spies of installing hidden cameras to watch Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.
The editor-in-chief of Wikileaks Kristinn Hrafnsson claimed Assange has been the victim of an “extreme spying operation” and it is part of a €3million extortion plot.
Fidel Narvaez, the former Consul of Ecuador to London, said yesterday: “The Ecuadorian embassy is not protecting Assange any more.
“It is doing everything possible to end the asylum.
Wikileaks was set up in 2006 as an anti-secrecy organisation to allow whistleblowers to release information anonymously.
By 2015, the WikiLeaks website had published more than ten million documents including some classified as top secret.
The organisation says its purpose is “to bring important news and information to the public… so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth.”
From early on it has faced fierce criticism from governments and defence and intelligence officials who accuse it of being irresponsible.
It is hosted on computer servers based in several countries around the world such as Iceland and Sweden where the law protects disclosures, putting it out of reach of efforts by US law enforcement bodies to close it down.
The US Justice Department launched a criminal probe into Wikileaks and its outspoken founder Julian Assange after the leak of diplomatic cables in 2010.
“The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because the international shame and historic shame.”
Wikileaks, a website which publishes classified info from anonymous sources, made the claim last week that its founder was going to be evicted in a tweet and quoted an unnamed high-level Ecuadorian government source.
They also claimed officials had come to an agreement with the UK to arrest him and extradite him to Sweden.
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