A people’s hero or a stooge of Putin’s Kremlin?
The long-overdue arrest of Julian Assange for breaching bail conditions now paves the way for him to face charges of an altogether more serious nature. For the activist who likes to portray himself as a heroic champion of human rights could now find himself facing accusations that he is little more than a stooge of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
That certainly appears to be the implication to be drawn from the possible charges he will face following the United States extradition request that resulted in his undignified removal yesterday from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
It emerged earlier this year that the US justice department has secretly filed criminal charges against Mr Assange relating to his alleged involvement in leaking damaging details of Hillary Clinton’s emails during the 2016 presidential election.
The US authorities are convinced that the material, which many in Washington believe damaged Mrs Clinton’s chances of beating Donald Trump, was acquired by Russian computer hackers who leaked it to Wikileaks for publication.
The main motive for Mr Assange seeking asylum in the embassy seven years ago was his fear that he might be the subject of a US extradition request over his association with US army Private Bradley Manning, who was convicted of stealing highly sensitive documents about US involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Many of these documents appeared on Wikileaks, making Mr Assange an obvious target for US investigators.
Thus, when the Swedish authorities sought his extradition in 2012 over allegations of sexual assault, Mr Assange suspected that the US authorities might take advantage of his detention in Sweden to pursue their own extradition request.
It now transpires that Mr Assange’s fears were well founded after it was confirmed that the police officers who took him into custody yesterday were acting on behalf of the US government, which wants to extradite him to the US to face trial for numerous offences.
Certainly, when Washington remains obsessed with suspicions about possible Russian collusion in Donald Trump’s election victory, Mr Assange will have very serious questions to face if the US authorities are successful with their request.