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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been stripped of his citizenship by Ecuador over claims of unpaid fees and false documents.
Ecuador’s justice system made the decision after a claim from the country’s foreign ministry based on multiple inconsistencies, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents and unpaid fees, among other issues in Assange’s naturalisation letter.
Authorities said it was standard practice to revoke citizenship where it had been received fraudulently, with false documents, or through concealing relevant facts.
Carlos Poveda, Assange’s lawyer, said the decision was made without due process and Assange was not allowed to appear in the case.
‘On the date [Assange] was cited he was deprived of his liberty and with a health crisis inside the deprivation of liberty centre where he was being held,’ Poveda said.
Ecuador has revoked the citizenship of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who is currently in prison
Assange spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy (pictured), where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault
Carlos Poveda, Assange’s lawyer, said the decision was made without due process and Assange was not allowed to appear in the case
Poveda said he will file appeals asking for an amplification and clarification of the decision.
‘More than the importance of nationality, it is a matter of respecting rights and following due process in withdrawing nationality.’
Assange received Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018 as part of a failed attempt by the government of then-President Lenín Moreno to turn him into a diplomat to get him out of its embassy in London.
On Monday, the Pichincha court for contentious administrative matters revoked this decision.
Ecuador’s foreign ministry said the court had ‘acted independently and followed due process in a case that took place during the previous government and that was raised by the same previous government’.
Assange, 50, has been in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle.
Assange spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy until his arrest in April 2019
Assange, 50, was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle
Assange, 50, has been in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since he was arrested in April 2019
Assange spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy, where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he denied.
Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.
US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
US prosecutors and Western security officials regard Mr Assange as a reckless enemy of the state whose actions threatened the lives of agents named in the leaked material.
The prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published.
WikiLeaks came to prominence when it published a US military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Supporters of arrive as a protest picnic demanding the release of Julian Assange is held on his 50th birthday at Parliament Square on July 3, 2021 in London, England
Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan
Source: dailymail
