Assange used embassy as ‘centre for spying’: Moreno
Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of using the country’s London embassy as a “centre for spying” while he was given refuge there for seven years.
Moreno said Ecuador terminated Assange’s asylum because he repeatedly violated international conventions, and WikiLeaks
had threatened Quito.
“It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states,” he said in an e-mail interview with the Guardian newspaper yesterday.
“We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a centre for spying,” Moreno added. “This activity violates asylum conditions.”
Embassy officials allowed police to enter the building on Thursday to arrest Assange for breach of British bail conditions linked to a Swedish extradition request.
Police later said the 47-yearold Australian citizen was “further arrested on behalf of the US authorities.”
The US justice department said it has charged Assange for conspiring with former US military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak a trove of classified material in 2010.
Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer who said she regularly visited Assange at the embassy, told Sky News on Sunday that Ecuador was “making some pretty outrageous allegations to justify an unlawful and extraordinary act to allow British police to come inside an embassy.”
“The politics of the case, with respect to Ecuador, changed with the change of government, with Moreno coming to power (in May 2017),” Robinson said. “And ever since then, inside the embassy, it’s become more and more difficult.”
Two lawmakers of the German party Die Linke and a Spanish MEP yesterday protested outside London’s Belmarsh prison, where Assange is being held until his next scheduled court appearance on May 2.
Die Linke’s Sevim Dagdelen and Heike Haensel and MEP Ana Miranda condemned the Ecuadorian government for “flagrant violation of international law by rescinding Assange’s asylum.”
“The Ecuadorian government is now trying to divert attention from its breach of the law by engaging in a disinformation and slander campaign against Assange to poison public opinion on Assange,” the trio said in a statement. They said their “primary objective... is now to prevent the extradition of Julian Assange to the US.”
“Extradition to Sweden should also be avoided, because there, too, a transfer to the US cannot be ruled out,” they added. The trio also urged the German and Spanish governments to grant political asylum to Assange and to “work within the EU and the European Council to grant protection and hinder the extradition.”
Moreno insisted that his government’s decision was “based on international law.” He told the Guardian that Britain had given “written guarantees” that Assange will not be extradited to “third countries where he could suffer torture, ill-treatment or the death penalty.”