Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange took refuge in the embassy in to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that has since been dropped. At Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday he was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court. He now faces US federal conspiracy charges related to one of the largest ever leaks of government secrets.
The UK will decide whether to extradite Assange, in response to allegations by the Department for Justice that he conspired with former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified databases.
He faces up to five years in US prison if convicted on the charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson said they would be fighting the extradition request. She said it set a "dangerous precedent" where any journalist could face US charges for "publishing truthful information about the United States". She said she had visited Assange in the police cells where he thanked supporters and said: "I told you so.
Assange had predicted that he would face extradition to the US if he left the embassy. After his arrest, the year-old Australian national was initially taken to a central London police station before appearing in court. Dressed in a black suit and black polo shirt, he waved to the public gallery and gave a thumbs up. He pleaded not guilty to the charge of failing to surrender to the court.
Finding him guilty of that charge, District Judge Michael Snow said Assange's behaviour was "the behaviour of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest". He sent him to Southwark Crown Court for sentencing, where he faces up to 12 months in prison. The court also heard that during his arrest at the embassy he had to be restrained and shouted: "This is unlawful, I am not leaving. Assange set up Wikileaks in with the aim of obtaining and publishing confidential documents and images.
The organisation hit the headlines four years later when it released footage of US soldiers killing civilians from a helicopter in Iraq. Former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was arrested in for disclosing more than , confidential documents, videos and diplomatic cables to the anti-secrecy website. She said she only did so to spark debates about foreign policy, but US officials said the leak put lives at risk.
She was found guilty by a court martial in of charges including espionage. However, her jail sentence was later commuted. Manning was recently jailed for refusing to testify before an investigation into Wikileaks' role in revealing the secret files.
The indictment against Assange, issued last year in the state of Virginia, alleges that he conspired in with Manning to access classified information on Department of Defense computers. He faces up to five years in jail.
Manning downloaded four databases from US departments and agencies between January and May , the indictment says. This information, much of which was classified, was provided to Wikileaks. The US Justice Department described it as "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States". Cracking a password stored on the computers, the indictment alleges, would have allowed Manning to log on to them in such a way as to make it harder for investigators to determine the source of the disclosures.
It is unclear whether the password was actually broken. Correspondents say the narrowness of the charge seems intended to avoid falling foul of the US Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press. The Wikileaks co-founder had been in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since , after seeking asylum there to avoid extradition to Sweden on a rape allegation.
The investigation into the alleged rape, which he denied, was later dropped because he had evaded the arrest warrant. The Swedish Prosecution Authority has said it is now considering whether to resume the inquiry before the statute of limitations runs out in August Scotland Yard said it was invited into the embassy on Thursday by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum.
Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno said the country had "reached its limit on the behaviour of Mr Assange". Mr Moreno said: "The most recent incident occurred in January , when Wikileaks leaked Vatican documents. His accusations against Assange also included blocking security cameras at the embassy, accessing security files and confronting guards.
I guess it was a sense of moral disgust. It was no surprise when allegations were made in court about plots to kidnap or poison Julian. It was like a black site in the middle of London. Complete lawlessness. Surely she and Assange must have feared bringing children into that environment?
Sure, not the ideal circumstances, but it felt right. When did she tell her parents about her relationship with Assange? How did she manage to keep the children secret from everybody else for so long? Moris says that over the past decade she has necessarily become increasingly private. It sounds so conspiratorial! But, basically, people were spying on Julian.
When the relationship with the embassy was good, Moris says, it was a sociable place. Assange was visited frequently by friends, who would stay late working, chatting around the dinner table and watching movies. But after Gabriel was born, she says the atmosphere had changed. I was thinking when I went home at night people were following me, and were going to beat me up. They were trying everything they could to drive Julian out of the embassy.
In October , Assange was given a set of house rules by the embassy and further restrictions were introduced — Moris and the few designated visitors were allowed access only during specific visiting hours, and not at weekends. In November , Moris stopped going into the embassy altogether.
She was heavily pregnant with their second son, Max, and feared that if discovered, it would be used as a pretext to expel Assange from the embassy. The next time she saw him was in Belmarsh prison, five months later. On 11 April , Ecuador withdrew its diplomatic asylum and the Metropolitan police entered the embassy. In May, he was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for breaching bail conditions.
Soon after Assange was arrested at the embassy, he was indicted on 17 charges for violating the Espionage Act by publishing classified information, and one charge of conspiring to hack into a secret Pentagon computer network.
If found guilty, he faces a maximum years in jail. In November , Sweden dropped the rape investigation the deadline for bringing charges on the sexual assault allegation expired in But it provided little comfort for Assange. By now America was set on extraditing him. It would have been impossible otherwise. It is exhausting. And it is incredibly stressful.
When somebody you love is being hurt, it hurts you, too. She talks about how difficult it has been to take the boys to visit their father in prison under Covid restrictions. Now at least the kids can hug him and I can hug him. The children are very affectionate with him — so natural. Gabriel and Max are now four and two respectively. Has she explained the concept of prison to them? She shudders and says no, they are too young.
Moris says she knows he will be a good father to them. He teaches them. They liked that game. Julian is a good father. He was like a tiger mom for his eldest son. He taught him how to code at a young age. They would perform a Greek tragedy, the two of them together. Moris is wearing a diamond engagement ring. I ask if she had to buy it herself.
Was it a happy or sad occasion? I consulted with Julian. I described it to him. Has that plan been frustrated? I ask how Assange is keeping. In his wing, one of his closer friends killed himself, then someone else slit his throat.
Indeed, it formed the major plank of his first hearing against extradition. And this is where the Julian Assange story gets even stranger — if possible. Despite the fact there are no new charges against him in the UK, he is still in the category A prison Belmarsh, where he has spent much of his time in solitary confinement.
She had taken into account his history of depression and his autism, and ruled that extraditing Assange would increase the risk of his suicide. For Moris, none of it makes any sense: the UK government should have simply ruled out extraditing Assange on espionage charges.
Open any international law textbook and it will give you espionage, treason and sedition as the clearest examples of political offences.
As for the indictment, she says it is nonsense. In other words, the Department of Justice is accusing Assange of trying to protect his off-the-record source — as any decent journalist would. Media organisations around the world, including the Guardian, have expressed grave concerns about the implications of extraditing Assange.
This article comes from Saturday, the new print magazine from the Guardian which combines the best features, culture, lifestyle and travel writing in one beautiful package. Alan Rusbridger , who edited the Guardian when it worked with Assange, believes that extraditing him to the US has worrying implications. Rusbridger says the Assange case is particularly dangerous because it comes at a time when so many countries are legislating to outlaw reporting about national security. Boris Johnson has dismissed a Law Commission recommendation that the public interest should be a defence under the Official Secrets Act and has proposed that the government would no longer have to prove that harm had been done by any disclosures.
In other words, investigative journalism could be recast as spying. F ew journalists who worked with Assange will defend everything he has done.
However, virtually all of them, including those he had feuds with, have now come out fighting for him. Mr Assange is no hero. But this case now represents a threat to freedom of expression and, with it, the resilience of American democracy itself. Moris says she is sick of these mealy-mouthed defences. She suggests that mainstream news organisations jumped at the opportunity of working with WikiLeaks, then distanced themselves from him as soon as the going got tough.
The future of living in a free and open society is at stake. Moris is exceptionally bright. But at times she also seems naive — as much the disciple of Assange as his partner. Although Moris and the boys have the right to stay in the UK, Assange could still be deported to Australia. I notice she is wearing a necklace with three tiny hearts on it. Julian and the two boys.
She shows me a photograph of the children. Both of them are dead ringers for Assange. Does she see him in them? They are stubborn. But I guess that probably applies to me as well.
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