Wikileaks Founder Arrested in London

Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, was arrested Thursday after Ecuador withdrew his asylum, the documents of which had kept him under protection at the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years. Not only did Ecuador withdraw Assange’s asylum based upon the Wikileaks founder’s behavioral issues, Ecuadorian officials invited London Metropolitan police into the embassy to arrest Assange.

Assange’s refuge was revoked by the Ecuadorian government after continuous offenses had put him in hot water at the Ecuadorian Embassy. He had been housed in the embassy for seven years, seeking and receiving asylum after his website, Wikileaks, had become well known for leaking classified government information, including documents and videos.

Wikileaks was founded by Assange in 2006, and less than a year later, in December of 2007, leaked the U.S. Army manual for soldiers interacting with prisoners at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. The leaking of the U.S. Army manual is only the beginning of a several-year long flurry of leaked government and classified information, spanning from the years 2007 all the way to 2018. Among Wikileaks’ flurry of acquired confidential information is a set of internal documents for the Church of Scientology, which was leaked in March 2008, Sarah Palin’s private emails from her Yahoo account in September 2008, and almost 100,000 documents concerning the Afghanistan war in July of 2010. Months later, in October of 2010, Wikileaks then posts nearly 500,000 classified documents about the Iraq war. In December of the same year, Amazon removed Wikileaks from its servers, a major move against the website concerned only with leaking classified information, and in turn, stirring up trouble.

In October of 2011, Assange announced that Wikileaks would take a short hiatus in order to fundraise an almost dramatic amount of money, after the website’s fundraising abilities had been revoked by several banks and card companies. After the U.S. war information, including an Army combat video, was posted on the website, the United States federal government launched a criminal investigation into Wikileaks, its contributors, and the man himself, Julian Assange. Chelsea Manning, who contributed classified documents and sent combat videos to Wikileaks, then had her Article 32 hearing in December of 2011. An Article 32 hearing can usually be described as the equivalent of a grand jury trial. On Feb. 23, 2012, Manning was charged with “aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet, transmitting national defense information, and theft of public property or records.” Basically, Manning’s charges are equated to that of a charge of treason, as she had compromised her own nation by leaking the information she contributed to Wikileaks.

While Manning faced hearings, a trial, and sentencing of 35 years, Wikileaks continued to leak more information to the public via its web page. There was what can only be described as radio silence, though, from August 2013 to July 2016, until almost 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee were released, showing the Democratic Party’s favoritism for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. In April of 2017, U.S. authorities announced their plan to arrest Assange, constructing criminal charges against him. Finally, two years after the U.S. made their plan to arrest the Wikileaks founder public, Assange was arrested in London on U.S. extradition papers. The Australian founder faces U.S. hacking charges, of which he could face several decades in prison, for his role in stealing government secrets back in 2010.

In addition to the charges against him from the U.S. federal government, Assange may face charges from Sweden for allegations that he sexually assaulted two women while visiting Stockholm in 2010. Facing these potential charges originally in 2010, when the assaults were first reported, Assange continued for years to deny all charges that had been brought up against him. He attempted to fight his extradition to Sweden, and lost, then beginning his relationship with Ecuador when he entered the embassy in London, intending to apply for political asylum in June of 2012. He was granted the asylum and remained in the Ecuadorian Embassy until just several days ago.

The Ecuadorian government revoked Assange’s political asylum days ago, citing his behavioral issues within the walls of the embassy, along with other problems. The embassy was not made for a permanent guest of seven years, and staff members at the embassy began to have a hard time tolerating and working around his terrible behavior. Not only did he torment embassy staff, but classified documents from Ecuador had also been leaked, to which the Ecuadorian government blamed Wikileaks.

After seven years of asylum in London, Assange is now in U.S. custody, where he will face the charges against him. People are now beginning to question whether Assange could be linked to Russia’s attack on the 2016 election. This has yet to be discovered and announced publicly.