ANALYSIS: Julian Assange: from political asylum to prison

Date created : 13/05/2019 - 18:53  GMT/ZULU

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is fighting extradition to the United States, while Swedish authorities are reopening an investigation into a rape allegation AFP/File

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Paris 

by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is fighting extradition to the United States to face charges over the 2010 publication of thousands of classified documents.

Swedish prosecutors decided Monday to reopen his investigation for alleged rape in 2010, which he denies and says is a pretext for his US transfer,

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Here is a timeline of events since Assange first hit the headlines in 2010 :

- 2010: arrest warrant -

- July to October: The WikiLeaks whistleblowing website releases 470,000 classified military documents concerning US diplomacy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It later releases a further tranche of more than 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables.

- November: A Swedish prosecutor issues a European arrest warrant for Assange over sexual assault allegations involving two Swedish women. Assange denies the claims, saying the women consented.

- December: He turns himself in to police in London and is arrested pending a ruling on the Swedish request for his extradition. A week later he is released on bail and calls the allegations a smear campaign.

- 2011: extradition ruling -

- February: A British judge rules that Assange can be extradited to Sweden. He launches an appeal.

- 2012: refuge at embassy -

- June: He takes refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London to avoid extradition and applies for political asylum.

British police say he is subject to arrest for breaching the conditions of his 2010 bail, which included staying at his bail address overnight.

- August: Ecuador grants Assange asylum and he begins his almost seven-year stay and in the Ecuadorian embassy in London

- 2016: UN appeal -

- January: Ecuador rejects a request by Swedish prosecutors to question Assange over the sexual assault allegations.

- February: The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says Assange has been "arbitrarily detained".

- 2017: sex case closed -

- January: WikiLeaks says Assange could travel to the United States to face investigation if his rights are guaranteed. This comes after one of the site's main sources of leaked documents, military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, is granted clemency.

- May: Swedish prosecutors drop the seven-year sex assault investigation, frustrated by the failure to have him extradited. The lawyer for one accuser calls the decision "a scandal".

- December: Ecuador grants Assange nationality but is blocked by Britain from according him diplomatic status.

- 2018: embassy tensions -

- January: Ecuador says it is seeking a mediator to resolve the "untenable" situation.

- February: Assange loses a bid to have his British arrest warrant cancelled on health grounds.

- March: Ecuador cuts off his communications -- including use of the internet or a mobile phone -- alleging he broke an agreement on interfering in other countries' affairs. It warns further breaches will lead to "termination of asylum".

- October: Assange sues the Ecuador government for violating his "fundamental rights" but the case is thrown out. His communications are partially restored.

- November: US prosecutors inadvertently disclose the existence of a sealed indictment against Assange.

- 2019: arrest -

- April 2: Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno says Assange has "repeatedly violated" the conditions of his asylum.

- April 10: Ecuador cancels his citizenship.

- April 11: British police arrest Assange at the embassy, saying Ecuador had informed them that his asylum had been withdrawn. He is held for breaching his 2010 bail conditions and also on a US extradition request.

- May 1: Assange is sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching bail.

- May 2: The legal process for his extradition to the US starts in a London court, Assange vowing to resist.

- May 13: Swedish prosecutors say they are reopening the 2010 rape investigation.

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ANALYSIS: Julian Assange: Transparency icon or enemy of the state?

Date created : 11/04/2019 - 14:58  GMT/ZULU

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange likened his stay at the Ecuadoran embassy in London to living on a space station Wikileaks founder Julian Assange likened his stay at the Ecuadoran embassy in London to living on a space station AFP/File

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London 

by Selina O'Grady and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts

A heroic campaigner for openness, or an enemy of the US state trying to avoid justice: after a decade in the limelight, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains a polarising figure.

The 47-year-old Australian was on Thursday arrested by British police at Ecuador's embassy in London, his home since 2012, after it withdrew his asylum status.

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Assange lived in a small apartment in the embassy where he sought refuge while facing investigation for sexual assault and rape in Sweden, claims which were later dropped.

He denied the allegations, saying they were politically motivated and expressing fears of a plot to ultimately extradite him to the United States.

At the time, he was famous as the frontman of WikiLeaks as the whistleblowing website exposed government secrets worldwide.

He was applauded by transparency and anti-war campaigners for revealing the death of civilians, torture and clandestine military operations with the release of 500,000 US documents on the Iraq and Afghan wars.

But the United States and its allies accused him of risking lives by revealing information on sources, intelligence techniques and key infrastructure sites.

Human rights groups and newspapers that once worked with Assange to edit and publish the war logs were also horrified when WikiLeaks dumped the documents unredacted online, including the names of informants.

There have since been questions about his relationship with Russia, with WikiLeaks identified in independent prosecutor Robert Mueller's probe into interference in the 2016 US election.

Mueller found that Russian government actors hacked White House hopeful Hillary Clinton's campaign "and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks".

- Exposing 'truth' of war -

Born in Townsville, Queensland, in 1971, Assange has described a nomadic childhood and claims to have attended 37 schools before settling in Melbourne.

As a teenager he discovered a talent for computer hacking, and although he has pleaded guilty to 25 such offences, he has only ever walked away with fines.

He created WikiLeaks in 2006 with a group of like-minded activists and IT experts, to provide a secure way for whistleblowers to leak information.

A confident speaker, he became its figurehead -- and a lightning rod for criticism.

The most damaging leaks emerged in 2010, beginning with a video showing a US military Apache helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians on a Baghdad street in 2007.

It was followed by more than 90,000 classified US military files from the Afghan war, 400,000 from Iraq, and in November that year, around 250,000 US diplomatic cables covering almost every country in the world.

- Facing justice -

He was arrested in Britain in December 2010 and a judge ordered his extradition to Sweden. Although the claims were dropped, he still faced arrest by British police for having jumped bail.

Ecuador's then president, Rafael Correa, said Assange's human rights could be at risk and offered him refuge, but his successor, Lenin Moreno who took office in 2017, has had less patience.

He has accused Assange of interfering in foreign affairs. Ecuador temporarily cut his internet connection last year, and last week said the Australian had "repeatedly violated" the terms of his stay.

In the past, Assange said his time at the embassy was like living in a space station -- he exercised on a treadmill and used a sun lamp to make up for the lack of natural light.

This week, his supporters said it had become a "Truman-show type situation", accusing the Ecuador authorities of gathering thousands of photographs and videos from inside the apartment.

In 2016 a UN panel declared that Assange had been detained arbitrarily, but critics have said his concerns of extradition to the US are unfounded and accused him of seeking to avoid justice.

"WikiLeaks was founded on exposing those who ignored the rule of law. Surely its editor-in-chief should recognise his duty to see it upheld," The Guardian newspaper, which once worked with him to publish the leaks, wrote in 2016.

Assange has, however, found growing growing backing among supporters of Donald Trump, after the US institutions he had exposed began also to investigate the president.

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Sweden should promise Assange will not be extradited: Ecuador says

Wed Nov 16, 2016 |  04H:38  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Enrique Krause, Selina O'Grady, and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, London/Quito

Ecuador said on Wednesday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should receive guarantees that he will not be extradited if he faces justice in Sweden after four years of living in the South American nation's embassy in London.

Assange, who enraged Washington by publishing a flood of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, fled to the embassy for fear that Sweden could end up sending him on to the United States where he could face prison for leaking U.S. secrets.

"If we can obtain guarantees that Mr. Assange will not face extradition to the third country, I think it's fine for him to face Swedish justice - if there are charges, because are there still no charges," said Foreign Minister Guillaume Long in an interview with an Ecuadorean radio station.

Swedish Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren spent several hours at the embassy on Tuesday where she posed questions through an Ecuadorian prosecutor, before leaving without making comment.

Assange, who has repeatedly denied the rape allegation, sought refuge in Ecuador's embassy in August 2012. He is wanted in Britain for breaching bail.