Will Ecuador Hand Over Assange?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44166810

Ecuador removes Julian Assange's extra security

Ecuador has removed extra security at its London embassy following claims that $5m (£3.7m) was spent to protect WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The money was used to monitor Mr Assange's visitors, embassy staff and UK police, media reports in the UK and Ecuador said.

Mr Assange has been at the embassy since 2012 after being granted asylum.

He fled there to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crime allegations, which he denies.

The Swedish authorities have since dropped their investigation, but Britain is still seeking his arrest for breaching bail conditions.

Mr Assange, 46, believes he will be extradited to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he leaves the building.

He set up Wikileaks, which publishes confidential documents and images, in 2006 - making headlines around the world in April 2010 when it released footage showing US soldiers shooting dead 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq.

In a brief statement, it said: "The president of the republic, Lenín Moreno, has ordered that any additional security at the Ecuadorian embassy in London be withdrawn immediately."

It added that the mission would now "maintain normal security similar to that of other Ecuadorian embassies".

It follows reports in the Guardian newspaper and Focus Ecuador that the operation, called "Operation Guest" and later "Operation Hotel", cost about $66,000 a month.

In March, Ecuador cut Mr Assange's internet connection at the London embassy, preventing him from communicating with the outside world.

The move was to prevent Mr Assange from interfering in other countries' affairs, Ecuador said.

It came after Mr Assange had questioned accusations that Moscow was responsible for the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy and his daughter in the UK on 4 March.

Last May, Mr Moreno asked Mr Assange to refrain from expressing his public support for the independence campaign in Spain's Catalonia region after he tweeted that Madrid was guilty of "repression".

Mr Assange's Twitter account is now being run by his legal campaign.

Why is Assange still at Ecuador's London embassy?

He was granted asylum President Moreno's predecessor, Rafael Correa, in August 2012

The current government has said it will maintain Mr Assange's asylum

But Quito has also sought ways for him to leave the embassy without risking arrest

The Australia-born WikiLeaks founder was given Ecuadorean citizenship in 2017.
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DcM5z_1V0AAs27h.jpg


He looks high in this photo with Pamela Anderson.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/f...lhuff&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_breakingnews

And then, of course, there have been the strange rumors about her dating a certain Russian president. "I love this question," Anderson says, laughing, when asked about her relationship with Vladimir Putin. But she doesn't actually answer.

By far the most controversial relationship in her life at the moment, however, is with Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, the website that released hacked Democratic emails at strategic points during the 2016 elections that many believe may have helped swing the election to Donald Trump. How the Hollywood sex symbol became friends with the world's most wanted hacker — holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for the past six years to avoid extradition to Sweden, at first, and now the U.S. — is something of a mystery. All Anderson will say is that they met "years ago" and that it was Westwood who introduced them (Westwood calls her "one of the most intelligent women I ever met"). Anderson also declines to reveal the exact nature of their relationship, although it's clear her many visits with him at the embassy have drawn them close.

"We talk about everything," she says of her friendship with Assange. "We talk about the Bible, we talk about what's happening with my kids, what's happening with his family. It's not just about politics, even though I do take a lot of notes and it's so overwhelming, the information he gives me."
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His extra security is gone? We're going to find out how badly the International Interests want him dead.
 
It is interesting to note that he has had no leaks about anything since the election. Reminds me of George W. Bush's re-election campaign. When polls got closer, they (not Wikileaks but the government) would release some vague raise in the terrorism threat. Once the election was over, they stopped.
 
Hopefully they don't but I can't imagine what kind of pressure is being put on Ecuador's president to do so. Probably gets threatened on a daily basis. Assassination, sanctions, etc.
 
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Zippyjuan said:
It is interesting to note that he has had no leaks about anything since the election. Reminds me of George W. Bush's re-election campaign. When polls got closer, they (not Wikileaks but the government) would release some vague raise in the terrorism threat. Once the election was over, they stopped.
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No need for Wikileaks when you have the Deep State, the NYT and WaPo to leak rumors, lies and half-truths.
 
Julian Assange’s right to asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London will only be honored if the WikiLeaks founder “respects the conditions” of political silence, President Lenin Moreno announced.
Ever since Lenin Moreno became the president of Ecuador last year, the liberties enjoyed by Julian Assange have been reduced due to the whistleblower’s controversial “political activity.” Over the last few months, Assange has seen bans on using the phone, the internet, and having visitors, after the 46-year-old spoke out against Britain’s response to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, and following his repeated comments about Spain’s dispute with Catalonia.
The Australian journalist, who has been holed up in the embassy since 2012, “continues being a problem,” Moreno told DW Spanish. “But Ecuador will respect his right to asylum if Assange respects the margins.”


“He will continue enjoying his right to asylum, as long as he meets the requirements,” Moreno said. “Do not forget that his asylum status prevents him from talking about politics and intervening in friendly countries’ politics. That’s why we cut his communication.”
If Assange disregards the conditions, the Ecuadorian government could “take a decision” to reconsider his status, Moreno said.

More at: https://www.infowars.com/ecuador-wi...ylum-right-if-he-obeys-no-politics-condition/
 
timosman said:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ecuador-in-talks-to-evict-assange-its-stone-in-the-shoe-j8wgr9w98

Britain is in high-level talks with Ecuador in an attempt to remove Julian Assange from its London embassy, where he has been sheltering for more than six years.
Ministers and senior Foreign Office officials are locked in discussions over the fate of Assange, the founder and editor of WikiLeaks, who claimed political asylum from Ecuador in 2012 and who believes he will be extradited to the United States if he leaves the embassy in Knightsbridge, central London.
Sir Alan Duncan, the Foreign Office minister, is understood to be involved in the diplomatic effort, which comes weeks before a visit to the UK by Lenin Moreno, the new Ecuadorean president, who has called Assange a “hacker”, an “inherited problem” and a “stone in the shoe”.
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...
 
Swordsmyth said:
What if they do and he wins his trial?
It could get interesting.
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Mueller very much focuses on both Julian Assange -though he doesn’t get named and is not indicted- and his presumed links to the indicted Russians, who -allegedly- posed as Guccifer 2.0:
Use of Organization 1
47. In order to expand their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Conspirators transferred many of the documents they stole from the DNC and the chairman of the Clinton Campaign to Organization 1. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to heighten their impact on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
a. On or about June 22, 2016, Organization 1 sent a private message to Guccifer 2.0 to “end any new material [stolen from the DNC] here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing.” On or about July 6, 2016, Organization 1 added, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.” The Conspirators responded, “ok . . . i see.” Organization 1 explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”
b. After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email with an attachment titled “wk dnc link1.txt.gpg.” The Conspirators explained to Organization 1 that the encrypted file contained instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it had “the 1Gb or so archive” and would make a release of the stolen documents “this week.”
48. On or about July 22, 2016, Organization 1 released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators. This release occurred approximately three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. Organization 1 did not disclose Guccifer 2.0’s role in providing them. The latest-in-time email released through Organization 1 was dated on or about May 25, 2016, approximately the same day the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server.
49. On or about October 7, 2016, Organization 1 released the first set of emails from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign that had been stolen by LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators. Between on or about October 7, 2016 and November 7, 2016, Organization 1 released approximately thirty-three tranches of documents that had been stolen from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign. In total, over 50,000 stolen documents were released.
​
This means Mueller et al claim that WikiLeaks received the DNC files from Russian parties which had hacked into DNC(-related) servers. Something Julian Assange has always denied. Now, remember that the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former US intelligence professionals, as well as others, have said that the speed with which the files were downloaded from the server(s) indicates that they were not hacked, but put onto a hard drive.
The person who is supposed to have done that is Seth Rich. Who was murdered on July 10 2016. Kim Dotcom has long claimed to have evidence that Seth Rich was indeed the person who provided the files to Assange. Today he said on Twitter that his lawyers warned him about exposing that evidence, citing his safety and that of his family.
Deep State activities like this indictment against 12 Russians confirm the advise of my legal team. Special Counsel Mueller and the DOJ cannot be trusted. My team asked me not to provide my Seth Rich evidence without solid legal protections for me and my family. They were right!
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) July 13, 2018​
Half a year after Rich’s -never solved- murder, in the first months of 2017, the US Department of Defense was involved in negotiations with Assange in which the latter was offered -temporary- ‘safe passage’ from the Ecuador Embassy in London where he is holed up, in exchange for Assange ‘redacting’ a batch of files on the CIA known as Vault 7.
These negotiations were suddenly halted in April 2017 through the interference of James Comey -then FBI chief- and Mark Warner, a US Senator (D-VA). In the talks, Assange had offered to prove that no Russians were involved in the process that led to WikiLeaks receiving the files.
Today, of course, Assange is completely incommunicado in the Ecuador embassy, so he cannot defend himself against the Mueller accusations. Mueller really doesn’t have to prove anything: he can say what he wants. Comey and Warner prevented Assange from providing evidence exonerating ‘the Russians’, and Assange has been shut down.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-14/true-meaning-collusion-exposed
 
National Security: Charges undermine Assange denials about hacked email origins

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...53c8b2-87e1-11e8-9e06-4db52ac42e05_story.html

July 14, 2018

WASHINGTON — At the beginning of 2017, one of Julian Assange’s biggest media boosters traveled to the WikiLeaks founder’s refuge inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and asked him where he got the leaks that shook up the U.S. presidential election only months earlier.

Fox News host Sean Hannity pointed straight to the purloined emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

“Can you say to the American people, unequivocally, that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta’s emails, can you tell the American people 1,000 percent you did not get it from Russia or anybody associated with Russia?”

“Yes,” Assange said. “We can say — we have said repeatedly — over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.”

The Justice Department’s indictment Friday of 12 Russian military intelligence officers undermines those denials. And if the criminal charges are proved, it would show that WikiLeaks (referred to as “Organization 1” in the indictment) received the material from Guccifer 2.0, a persona directly controlled by Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU, and even gave the Russian hackers advice on how to disseminate it.

Whether Assange knew that those behind Guccifer 2.0 were Russian agents is not addressed in the indictment. But it seems unlikely that Assange, a former hacker who once boasted of having compromised U.S. military networks himself, could have missed the extensive coverage blaming the Kremlin for the DNC hack.

Assange told Hannity he exercised exclusive control over WikiLeaks’ releases.

“There is one person in the world, and I think it’s actually only one, who knows exactly what’s going on with our publications and that’s me,” Assange said.

On June 22, 2016, by which point the online publication Motherboard had already debunked Guccifer 2.0’s claim to be a lone Romanian hacker, WikiLeaks sent a typo-ridden message to the persona, saying that releasing the material through WikiLeaks would have “a much higher impact than what you are doing,” the indictment states.

“If you have anything hillary related we want it in the next (two) days pref(er)able because the DNC is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after,” says a message from July 6, 2016, referring to the upcoming Democratic National Convention and Clinton’s chief party rival, Bernie Sanders.

The exchange appears to point to a desire to undercut Clinton by playing up divisions within the Democratic camp.

“we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary ... so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting,” the message says.

At that time in the campaign, there were simmering tensions between the supporters of Clinton and Sanders that would come to a head during the convention because of the hacked emails.

WikiLeaks and a lawyer for Assange, Melinda Taylor, did not return messages seeking comment on the indictment or the exchanges with Guccifer 2.0.

Assange’s eagerness to get his hands on the alleged material from GRU reflected in the indictment — and prevent anyone else from beating WikiLeaks to the punch — is also revealed in leaked messages to journalist Emma Best. She, like several other reporters, also was in communication with Guccifer 2.0.

In copies of Twitter messages obtained by The Associated Press and first reported by BuzzFeed, WikiLeaks demands that Best butt out.

“Please ‘leave’ their convers(a)tion with them and us,” WikiLeaks said on August 13, 2016, arguing that the impact of material would be “very substantially reduced” if Best handled the leak.

Best told BuzzFeed she dropped the matter. About an hour after the conversation ended, Guccifer 2.0 announced on Twitter that it was sending a “major trove” of data and emails to WikiLeaks.

The indictment also puts to rest a conspiracy theory, carefully nurtured by Assange and his supporters, that slain DNC staffer Seth Rich was at the origin of the leaks.

Rich died in July 2016 in what police in the District of Columbia say was a botched robbery. But the tragedy became fodder for conspiracy theorists who pushed the unfounded allegation that Rich, 27, had been providing information to the hackers and was killed for it.

It was Assange who first floated the idea into the mainstream, bringing up Rich’s case in an interview with Dutch television the following month.

“What are you suggesting?” the startled anchor asked him.

“I’m suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that,” Assange answered.

The anchor pressed Assange repeatedly, eventually saying: “It’s quite something to suggest a murder. That’s basically what you’re doing.”

Over the next few months, WikiLeaks would continue to amplify the conspiracy theory -- all while stopping short of endorsing it outright. During all this time, the indictment alleges, WikiLeaks knew full well that Guccifer 2.0 was its source, cajoling the account’s operators to hand it more data and ordering rival journalists to steer clear.

The conspiracy theory has been a source of deep pain for Rich’s family, who declined to comment on the indictment.

Lisa Lynch, an associate professor of media and communications at Drew University who has written about WikiLeaks, said the indictment highlighted the cynicism of WikiLeaks’ wink-wink support for conspiracy theories.

“We can see very well-intentioned people arguing about whether those documents should be published,” Lynch said of the DNC documents. “But the whole Seth Rich thing is incredibly venal.”
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timosman said:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...53c8b2-87e1-11e8-9e06-4db52ac42e05_story.html
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As noted in the past, Assange was very careful in what he said about the source of the emails.

“Yes,” Assange said. “We can say — we have said repeatedly — over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.”
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That did not rule out Russia getting the emails and giving them to Assange via an intermediary.
 
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/ne...e/news-story/8eb00ab566814566c3554b84b0fdea5b

Britain in talks to evict Assange


Britain is in high-level talks with Ecuador in an attempt to remove Julian Assange from its London embassy, where he has been sheltering for more than six years.

Ministers and senior Foreign Office officials are locked in discussions over the fate of Assange, the Australian founder and editor of WikiLeaks, who claimed political asylum from Ecuador in 2012 and who believes he will be extradited to the US if he leaves the embassy in central London.

Sir Alan Duncan, the Foreign Office Minister, is understood to be involved in the diplomatic effort, which comes weeks before a visit to Britain by Lenin Moreno, the new Ecuadorean President, who has called Assange a “hacker”, an “inherited problem” and a “stone in the shoe”.

Sources close to Assange said he was not aware of the talks but believed that America was exerting “significant pressure” on Ecuador, including threatening to block a loan from the International Monetary Fund if the Latin American state did not evict him.

The news comes after 12 Russian spies were charged with hacking the emails of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee in America during her campaign to become president in 2016. According to the US Department of Justice, the embarrassing emails were then passed to WikiLeaks, which published them “to heighten their impact” during the electoral race, which was ultimately won by Donald Trump.

Under Mr Moreno’s predecessor, Rafael Correa, Ecuador granted Assange political asylum when he fled to its London embassy soon after being accused of sexual assault and rape in Sweden.

Assange convinced Ecuador that it was an elaborate plot orchestrated by the US government.

Since then, however, Assange has fallen out with the new Moreno administration, which has cut off his internet access, installed jammers and banned visitors to the embassy, apart from his lawyers.

Last month two officials from the Australian high commission paid a first visit in six years to the Ecuadorean embassy in London in a signal that there may be a breakthrough.

Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said she could not reveal details about the meeting “given the delicate diplomatic situation”.
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Ecuador is preparing to hand over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the UK in "coming weeks or even days," RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan reported, as political support and sympathy for Assange's predicament have more or less evaporated since the arrival of an administration that largely views Assange as an inherited problem, and would like more than anything to finally be rid of him. "My sources tell [Julian] Assange will be handed over to Britain in the coming weeks or even days," Simonyan wrote in a recent tweet which was reposted by WikiLeaks. "Like never before, I wish my sources were wrong," she continued.
Editor-in-chief of RT: "My sources tell me that @JulianAssange will be handed over to the #UK in the next weeks or days. Like never before I wish that my sources are wrong'' https://t.co/rvN3ne3ifd
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 20, 2018​
Earlier this week, reports surfaced in the UK media that high level talks were happening between UK and Ecuadorian officials to try and remove Assange from the embassy.
Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan is said to be spearheading the diplomatic effort. Sources close to Assange said he himself was not aware of the talks but believed that America was putting "significant pressure" on Ecuador, including threatening to block an IMF loan, if he continues to stay at the embassy.

As things stand, appears Assange will almost certainly be arrested once turned out of the embassy. But as that fate looks increasingly certain, it's important to remember that a UN panel determined that Assange’s stay in the embassy amounted to "arbitrary detention" but it wasn’t enough to change his fate.
Furthermore, as we pointed out earlier this week, US imported a record amount of crude from Ecuador last week (a massive unprecedented surge all of a sudden), which begs the question...was there a payoff?
2018.07.20ecuador.jpg


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...paring-hand-over-assange-coming-weeks-or-days
 
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-07/20/c_137336398.htm

Ecuador, Britain in talks over Assange standoff, says diplomat

QUITO, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Ecuador and Britain are "in the process of negotiating" a possible solution to their more than five-year standoff over WikiLeak's founder Julian Assange, a top official said on Thursday.

The anti-secrecy activist has been holed up at Ecuador's embassy in London since 2012, unable to make use of the political asylum the South American country granted him due to Britain's refusal to give him safe passage.

"We are in the process of negotiating" an end to the diplomatic deadlock, acting foreign affairs minister, Andres Teran, told local TV station Teleamazonas.

Ecuador, said Teran, is holding "the highest-level talks with Britain about this situation that we inherited" from the previous administration of ex-President Rafael Correa, who left office in 2017.

The two sides are not on the verge of announcing an agreement, Teran indicated, saying talks have not reached the point where the participation of current President Lenin Moreno is needed.

"The president's participation would have to come at the final stage," Teran added.
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Britain's Foreign Secretary today said Assange is "free to leave the embassy any time he wants" though he will be greeted by the police if he does.
 
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