Julian Assange, the co-founder of Wikileaks, was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The 47 year-old was forcibly removed from the embassy on a US extradition warrant. Assange was granted asylum in the embassy in 2012 when he was about to be extradited to Sweden following sexual assault charges.
Officers moved in after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited authorities into the embassy, citing Assange’s bad behavior.
Assange had been indicted by the US Department of Justice on a single charge of conspiring to steal military secrets with Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who supplied thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.
The Australian resisted his arrest and had to restrained, leading to dramatic scenes of British police hauling him by force out of the building. After being lifted into the waiting police van where he gave a thumbs-up to his supporters, he was taken directly to a police station where he was formally arrested.
Jennifer Robinson, a member of Assange’s legal team, said to journalists that they had been proven right in regards to their previous warnings that Assange would face extradition to United States . “I’ve just been with Mr. Assange in the police cell, he wants to thank all of his supporters for the ongoing support, and he said — ‘I told you so.’ ”
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