They just waited him out…..
Time was NOT on the Wikileaks mastermind side….
The US Marshall ‘s are likely, in the end , to fly over and bring him back to stand trail for publishing US Secrets, illegally obtained , that embarrassed the countries intelligence community and foreign service and may have cost other damage to the United States….He is charged initially with one count of conspiracy …His source of information was Americans and Russian intelligence contacts….Wikileaks is also part of the Mueller / Trump admin investigations…
Assange was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London….That countries President ordered him out into the hands of the London authorities ….Sweden wanted him for a sex crime charge, but dropped their case in 2017….He also faces a year sentence in Britain for bail jumping….
British authorities arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday in response to a U.S. extradition request, and a U.S. federal court unsealed an indictment charging him with a single count of conspiracy to disclose classified information that could be used to injure the United States.
Assange was taken into custody by British police after Ecuador rescinded his asylum at its embassy in London, ending a standoff that lasted nearly seven years.
London’s Metropolitan Police said a statement that Assange was “arrested on behalf of the United States authorities” and would “appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court as soon as possible.” British police originally sought custody of Assange for jumping bail after Sweden requested his extradition in a separate case stemming from sexual assault allegations.
In an indictment unsealed hours later, Assange was accused of conspiring in 2010 with Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst then known as Bradley Manning, and other conspirators to publish secret military and diplomatic documents that Manning had collected.
Jennifer Robinson, Assange’s lawyer, said on Twitter before the unsealing that her client was “arrested not just for breach of bail conditions but also in relation to a US extradition request.”
U.S. authorities have prepared an arrest warrant and extradition papers, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity…
Note…
Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified information from the agency in 2013, called Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s arrest Thursday a “dark day for freedom.”….
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Snowden, who lives in Russia under political asylum, was charged with stealing U.S. government property and violating the Espionage Act of 1917….
image…..news.sky.com
The US media is torn on this….
They want to support Assange on his publishing the Wikileaks info…
The charges are aimed at GETTING the info by illegal means…
Assange Update….
Britain’s Supreme Court on Monday said it had refused the latest appeal by Julian Assange, the embattled WikiLeaks founder, to prevent his extradition to the United States.
The announcement was a blow to Mr. Assange, coming just months after a high court said he would be able to appeal a decision by a lower court that would allow for his extradition. However, he has still not exhausted all of his legal options in the British courts, his lawyers said….
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