London, April 12: British police dragged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of Ecuador’s embassy Thursday after his seven-year asylum was revoked, paving the way for his extradition to the United States for one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information.
Hours after the frail-looking Assange, with white hair and a long beard, was carried head-first by at least seven men out of the London embassy and into a waiting police van, US officials announced he had been charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
As he was being hauled out of the embassy in a dramatic scene shortly after 0900 GMT after Ecuador terminated his asylum, the Australian-born Assange was heard shouting, “This is unlawful, I’m not leaving.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May hailed the news in parliament, to cheers and cries of “Hear, hear!” from lawmakers. But in Washington, President Donald Trump, who in 2016 said “I love WikiLeaks” after the website released emails that U.S. authorities have said were hacked by Russia to harm his election opponent Hillary Clinton, told reporters he had no opinion on the charges against Assange.
In Washington, the US Justice Department said Assange was charged with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer as part of a 2010 leak by WikiLeaks of hundreds of thousands of US military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and American diplomatic communications. Legal experts said more US charges could be coming. The Kremlin said it hoped Assange’s rights would not be violated.
WikiLeaks angered Washington by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables that laid bare critical US appraisals of world leaders, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family. Assange made international headlines in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified US military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
US INVESTIGATION: Assange’s US indictment arose from a long-running criminal investigation dating back to the administration of former President Barack Obama. It was triggered in part by WikiLeaks’ publication in 2010 of U.S. military reports about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the diplomatic communications – disclosures that embarrassed the United States and strained relations with allies.
The Justice Department said Assange was arrested under an extradition treaty between the United States and Britain. The indictment said Assange in March 2010 engaged in a conspiracy to assist Manning, formerly named Bradley Manning, in cracking a password stored on US Department of Defence computers connected to a US government network used for classified documents and communications. Friends of Assange said his solitary existence in the embassy was tough on him. Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006. “Assange’s critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom,” said Edward Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor who fled to Moscow after revealing massive US intelligence gathering.