WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by the UK police on Thursday from the Ecuador embassy, where he has remained for seven years, and a British court has convicted him for breaching his bail conditions in 2012.
The Metropolitan Police were invited into the Ecuadorean embassy by the Ambassador and Assange was taken into custody. The court, after finding him guilty of skipping bail, reserved his sentence for a later date. He could be sentenced to 12 months in jail.
Assange had originally taken refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. After Assange was accused of leaking information about President Lenin Moreno's personal life, his relationship with Ecuador collapsed. Later, he sued the government of Ecuador for violating his "fundamental rights".
Assange will face another court hearing on May 2 on an extradition request made by the US. The US Justice Department alleges that the WikiLeaks founder conspired with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak military and diplomatic documents in the public domain.
The 47-year-old faces a federal charge of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified US government computer,” the US Justice Department said in a statement. If convicted and extradited, Assange faces up to five years in prison.
His lawyer has said that Assange will be contesting and fighting the extradition request.
Meanwhile, Australian consular officials have said that they will visit Assange in prison in London after ensuring that the US will not reserve the death penalty on the Australian native. Authorities have agreed not to intervene in the extradition process, but opposed any chance of death penalty.
