Julian Assange expelled within hours: Wikileaks

Julian Assange supporters say he will fight imminent expulsion from Ecuadorean embassy.

Julian Assange greets supporters outside the Ecuadorean embassy in 2017. Picture: AP.

Just one room of the five belonging to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London has the lights on. No one can be seen behind the heavy curtains, but its believed that Julian Assange, the Australian founder of Wikileaks is preparing to battle any imminent deportation.

After the whistle-blower website reported this morning that its founder was to be expelled from the Ecuadorean embassy in London “within hours to days”, his supporters started to arrive in support and a pop-up installation of teddy bears and light orange tents was erected on the front pavement of the embassy.

Wikileaks said this morning it had been told of Mr Assange’s imminent expulsion by “high level” sources in Ecuador.

“A high level source within the Ecuadorean state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within “hours to days” using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext — and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest,” the website tweeted..

BREAKING: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within "hours to days" using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext--and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.https://t.co/adnJph79wq

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 4, 2019

Wikileaks added later that it had secondary confirmation “from another high level source” in Ecuador.

Wikileaks said corruption allegations involving Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno which were published on the INA Papers website were being used as an excuse to oust 47-year-old Mr Assange from the building where he has claimed political asylum since 2012.

WikiLeaks told AP: “If President Moreno wants to illegally terminate a refugee publisher’s asylum to cover up an offshore corruption scandal, history will not be kind”.

Outside the embassy activist Sabine Von Toerne said she was shocked that such forced

removal was happening on British soil.

“We haven’t got the people here yet, so the teddy bears are filling in,’’ Ms Von Toerne told The Australian. “I am ringing Putin about this’’.

She said she was in touch with the Russian and Germany embassies to try and garner support. As she spoke, her friends switched on small battery tea-lights and placed them in letters to spell out No Eviction.

Across the road Ciaron O’Reilly, 59 from Brisbane who says he’s a friend of Mr Assange

was watching the proceedings keenly. He is a veteran anti-war protestor and has been camping out with his sign to Free Assange for much of the past year.

He and a relative had been part of Mr Assange’s bodyguard team when he appeared in court in London in late 2010 to defend allegations issued by Sweden in regards to an alleged sexual

assault (which have subsequently been withdrawn).

For the past six years Mr O’Reilly has been a regular presence outside the embassy. He

shows me his wooden box he sleeps in, organised by some of the neighbours. He tells me that the Special Branch has been around the embassy for much of the year, but had dropped off their patrols lately.

”But they are special branch, so you don’t always see them,’’he says.

O’Reilly predicts that Mr Assange, whom he used to meet regularly until Eucador stopped visits ast year, ‘’will battle and not surrender’’.

But he fears his friend will end up inside a British prison for a year while he fights extradition proceedings to the United States.

”It’s not good,’’ he says.

Earlier this week Mr Moreno suggested that his patience with Mr Assange had run out, saying in an nterview broadcast in Ecuador that Mr Assange had “repeatedly violated” the conditions of his asylum.

Ciaron O’Reilly, 59, originally from Brisbane has camped outside the Eucadorean embassy in London supporting Assange on and off for the past six years. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay.

Mr Assange originally sought refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced accusations of sexual assault that prosecutors in Stockholm have since abandoned.

In an interview broadcast by several Ecuadoran radio stations, Mr Moreno accused Mr Assange of interceptin ghis messages and leaking private family photographs.

“Assange has too often repeatedly violated the agreement we have with him and his legal team,” without saying whether Ecuador would withdraw asylum,” he said.

“It is not that he cannot speak freely, it is not that he cannot express himself freely, but he cannot lie, let alone hack into accounts or intercept private telephone calls” under the terms of his asylum agreement, Mr Moreno said.

Mr Assange has refused to leave the embassy to avoid extradition to the United States to face charges over his website publishing huge caches of hacked State Department and Pentagon files in 2010.

Mr Assange’s mother Christine almost immediately posted a request for a citizens’ vigil and livestreaming of the embassy.

URGENT

Julian about to be expelled from Embassy into hands of UK (US)!

NEEDED NOW!

* 24/7 Citizens Vigil

*24/7 Livestreaming using hashtag #ProtectJulian

WHERE:#Ecuador Embassy
3 Hans Cres
LONDON
(Knightsbridge Railway Station/Piccadilly line)

Please RT/share widely https://t.co/SARV6m7p4Z

— Mrs. Christine Assange (@AssangeMrs) April 4, 2019

Last July Britain and Ecuador held high level talks over Mr Assange’s potential removal from the embassy in Knightsbridge.

Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan was involved in the discussions over the fate of Mr Assange, who is confined to a small room in the embassy.

The talks came ahead of a visit to Britain by Mr Moreno who, shortly after becoming president had made it clear the whistle-blower was not a welcome addition to his embassy. Mr Moreno has described Mr Assange as a “hacker”, an “inherited problem” and a “stone in the shoe”.

In December, it was revealed US prosecutors had obtained a sealed indictment against Mr Assange. The indictment asked a judge to seal documents in a criminal case unrelated to the Australian, and carries markings indicating it was originally filed in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, in August. Prosecutors said the indictment was filed by mistake.

On Twitter, WikiLeaks said it was an “apparent cut-and-paste error”.

US officials have acknowledged federal prosecutors based in Alexandria have been conducting a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and its founder.

Members of Donald Trump’s administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have publicly called for Mr Assange to be prosecuted.

More to come