Assange’s computers seized from London embassy
BOGOTA, Colombia — With Julian Assange locked away in a London jail, a new battle has broken out over what may contain some of the Wikileaks founder’s biggest secrets: his computers.
On Monday, judicial authorities from Ecuador carried out an inventory of all the belongings and digital devices left behind at the London embassy following his expulsion last month from the diplomatic compound that had been his home the past seven years.
It’s not known what devices authorities removed from the embassy or what they contained. Authorities said they were acting on a request by U.S. prosecutors.
“It’s disgraceful,” said Wikileaks’ editor in chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson. “Ecuador granted him asylum because of the threat of extradition to the U.S. and now the same country, under new leadership, is actively collaborating with a criminal investigation against him.”
Assange, 47, was arrested on April 11 after being handed over to British authorities by Ecuador. He is serving a 50-week sentence in a London prison for skipping bail while the U.S. seeks his extradition for conspiring to hack into military computers and spill secrets about U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hrafnsson said Assange saw his eviction coming for weeks as relations with President Lenin Moreno’s government deteriorated, so he took great care to scrub computers and hard drives of any compromising material. Still, Hrafnsson said he expects Moreno or the Americans to claim revelations that don’t exist.
He called Monday’s proceedings a “horse show” because no legal authority can guarantee Assange’s devices haven’t been tampered with, or the chain of custody unbroken, in the six weeks since his arrest.