“Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder was granted refuge in 2012 while on bail in the UK over sexual assault allegations against him in Sweden.
“At the time, Assange claimed that if he was extradited to Sweden he might be arrested by the US and face charges relating to WikiLeaks’s publication of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables.” The Guardian
In spite of Sweden dropping the charges the UK doggedly maintained the arrest warrant for failing to turn up in Court as he suspected he would be extradited to the US to face charges that would put him in jail for a long time, or worse.
During Rafael Correa’ s government Ecuador complied with its duty to maintain Assange’s asylum but following the election of Moreno, his successor and former vice-president, the political climate changed and Ecuador sought closer ties with the US. The president began to express a view that Assange had broken the asylum rules and curtailed his access to the internet and visitors. Also it appears that Wikileaks had mentioned him in the Panama Papers and he accused the site of publishing private photographs.
Through a US court papers mistake it is known that criminal charges against Assange might have been prepared in secret.
Update 13 hs UK time: Julian Assange has appeared in Court and extradition proceedings to the US have been confirmed.
