Assange used embassy as control centre for campaign
Julian Assange turned the Ecuadorean embassy into a control centre for a Russian-backed campaign of interference in the 2016 US presidential election, according to documents prepared for the government that was sheltering him.
Assange personally managed the Wikileaks disclosure of emails hacked from the Clinton campaign ‘‘directly from the embassy’’, where he was visited by a hacker named as a potential courier of the stolen material, according to the surveillance reports.
Days after the Democratic National Convention said that it had been hacked, Ecuador granted Assange’s request for technical support for enhanced ‘‘data transmission’’ and installing equipment, the reports said.
The documents, obtained by CNN, were prepared by a Spanish security company, UC Global, hired by the Ecuadorean government. After President Donald Trump’s victory, the company concluded there was ‘‘no doubt that there is evidence’’ of Assange’s ties to Russian intelligence agencies.
After his eviction from the London embassy in April, his lawyers revealed that he had been spied on around the clock during his seven years there, using surveillance cameras.
Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is serving a 50-week sentence for breaching bail. He is fighting extradition to the US, where he faces up to 175 years in prison on charges of violating the Espionage Act.
It is unclear whether the Ecuadorean government was aware of Assange’s alleged work with Russia. Washington told Ecuador it was concerned that Assange was involved after the first email leaks.
His internet access was cut off in response, but leaks continued every day until the election.
Assange was given privileges at the embassy, the reports say, including drawing up a list of people able to enter without going through security checks.
In June 2016 the company recorded at least 75 visits, including by Russians linked to the Kremlin. One was Nikolay Bogachikhin, the London bureau chief for RT, the state-controlled media organisation. He gave Assange a USB drive during one hastily arranged visit, the reports say. Assange held some meetings with visitors in the women’s lavatory to avoid security cameras.
The reports chime with details in a report by the US special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the election. It concluded that the emails were stolen by Russian intelligence and passed to Wikileaks.
The report named the German hacker Andrew Muller-Maguhn as the individual who ‘‘may have assisted with the transfer of these stolen document to Wikileaks’’.
He visited Assange at least 12 times before the election, once on July 14, the same day that Russian hackers sent encrypted files to Wikileaks with the title ‘‘big archive.’’ Muller-Maguhn and another hacker, Bernd Fix, spent four hours at the embassy.
On October 18, three days after Ecuador cut off Assange’s internet, visitors arrived and began removing equipment including ‘‘about 100 hard drives’’. After a change of government in Ecuador in May 2017, attitudes towards Assange’s presence in the embassy hardened. His asylum was revoked in April and he was arrested. – The Times