Julian Assange lived in Ecuador’s London embassy for seven years
Julian Assange has begun his legal battle to fight extradition to the US, just one day after being handed 50 weeks in jail for breaching bail conditions to avoid being extradited to Sweden.
Delivering the prison sentence on Wednesday, Judge Deborah Taylor told the WikiLeaks founder that she largely rejected the mitigating factors cited by his lawyers for his prolonged stay inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, The Guardian reports. Assange fled to the embassy in 2012 after Swedish investigators opened an investigation into sexual assault allegations that has since been dropped.
“You remained there for nearly seven years, exploiting your privileged position to flout the law and advertise internationally your disdain for the law of this country,” said Taylor as she gave her ruling at at Southwark Crown Court.
An arrest warrant for the Australian-born fugitive has been issued by the US, where he faces a charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in relation to his collaboration with US army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning. The offence carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Assange’s lawyer, Mark Summers, had told the London court that his client was “gripped” by fears that if extradited to the US, he might be sent to Guantanamo Bay or face other charges that carry the death penalty.
“As threats rained down on him from America, they overshadowed everything as far as he was concerned,” Summers said. “They dominated his thoughts. They were not invented by him, they were gripping him throughout.”
Uncertainty remains over the UK will approve the US request for extradition. Assange, 47, today told a judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court that he does not consent to being extradited. The case was adjourned until 30 May.
Like most extradition treaties, that between the US and the UK excludes “political offences”. “There’s no clear definition of that term, but it is known to cover crimes like treason, espionage and sedition, as well as offences that are directed in some way against the power of the state,” reports Politico.
But how did Julian Assange get to this point? The Week looks at the Australian’s troubled timeline:
Assange the hacker
In September 1991, at the age of 20, Assange gets his first taste of the long arm of the law when he is caught hacking into the Australian headquarters of Nortel, a Canadian multinational telecommunications corporation. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Assange was the “ringleader” of a small organisation of three described by a prosecutor as“looksee” hackers motivated purely by “arrogance and a desire to show off computer skill”. When the case finally comes to trial, in December 1996, Assange pleads guilty to 25 charges, but escapes jail due to the perceived absence of malicious or mercenary intent.
In December 2006, Assange launches WikiLeaks. The first document posted on the website is a paper signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys of Somalia calling for the execution of government officials by hired hit men. According to the site, the goal of WikiLeaks is “to bring important news and information to the public ... One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth.”
In November 2010, WikiLeaks begins to release what it says are 251,287 diplomatic cables acquired from an anonymous source, prompting the US Department of Justice to open an investigation. The source is discovered to be army intelligence analyst Manning, who is later convicted under the Espionage Act. WikiLeaks becomes the subject of international attention when five newspapers around the globe - El Pais (Spain), Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany), The Guardian (UK) and The New York Times - publish 220 of the cables that WikiLeaks received from Manning.
Sexual assault allegations
In December 2010, Assange is arrested in London after Sweden issues an international arrest warrant over two allegations - one of rape and the other of molestation - by separate women. He denies the claims. Assange is “later granted conditional bail at the High Court, bankrolled by his supporters, who pay £240,000”, says The Guardian.
In November 2011, Assange loses his appeal against extradition to Sweden. His supporters say they fear that extradition to Sweden will result in him being extradited to the US to face charges of espionage. The Obama administration had repeatedly called Assange a “hi-tech terrorist” and expressed an intention to prosecute him when the opportunity arose.
The embassy years
In June 2012, after the UK Supreme Court denies his final appeal against his extradition, Assange enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London and is granted temporary asylum. The decision “put him in violation of his UK court bail, and it was clear that he’d be arrested by authorities if he ever tried to leave”, says Engadget.
In August 2012, Assange makes his first public appearance in two months. Speaking from the balcony of the embassy, he asks the US government to “renounce its witch-hunt” against Wikileaks.
In February 2016, the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says that the WikiLeaks founder has been arbitrarily detained by UK and Swedish authorities since his arrest in 2010, and that the detention violates his human, civil and political rights. The UK rejects this charge and says that the panel’s decision won’t prevent Assange from being arrested if he leaves the embassy.
The following August, Assange and WikiLeaks are implicated in the hacking and leaking of emails between leading Democrats in the 2016 US presidential elections. According to The Atlantic, Assange also exchanged secret correspondence with Donald Trump Jr, son of the Republican candidate, in the run-up to the election. Despite the alleged link, following the Trump victory the then-attorney general, Jeff Sessions, tells reporters that Assange’s arrest remains a “priority”.
In 2018, a leaked memo from the Ecuadorian government reveals signs of friction between diplomats and their long-term house guest. Months earlier, Assange’s internet access had been suspended on the grounds that he had been using it to “interfer[e] in other countries’ affairs”. The memo lays out a list of rules that he must follow in order to have his internet restored, including a warning “to provide better care of the feline that he shares the embassy with or it may be handed to a refuge”, says the BBC.
The memo also implores “Assange and his guests to keep the bathroom clean”, according to The Guardian. Failure to comply with the terms “could lead to the termination of the diplomatic asylum granted by the Ecuadorian state”, the letter warns. In response, Assange accuses Ecuador of violating his “fundamental rights and freedoms”.
Arrest and developments
In April 2019, Assange is arrested for breach of his bail conditions after Ecuador revokes his political asylum and invites Metropolitan Police officers inside its embassy in Knightsbridge. Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno says Assange’s asylum has been withdrawn as a result of his repeated violations of international conventions.
The Swedish authorities then announce that they are considering whether to reopen an investigation into the sexual abuse allegations, while the US vows to continue to push for his extradition.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn argues that Assange should not be extradited to the US “for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan”. In a tweet, Corbyn posts a video released by WikiLeaks that allegedly shows Pentagon footage of a 2007 air strike “which implicated US military in the killing of civilians and two journalists”, reports the BBC.
On 1 May, a judge sentences Assange to 50 weeks in prison for breaching his bail conditions. The legal battle over the US request for his extradition continues.
from Featured Articles http://bit.ly/2Jcik7p
via Latest News in UK
No comments:
Post a Comment