WikiLeaks founderJulian Assangewas arrested on Thursday in London and pulled from the Ecuadorian Embassy where he has been living in asylum for seven years, PEOPLE confirms.
U.K. authorities said he faces extradition to the United States for alleged “computer related offences.” The U.S. Department of Justice said he is suspected of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and, if found guilty, faces up to five years in prison.
While Assange was set to appear in a London court on Thursday, a timeline for his handover to American law enforcement was not immediately clear.
His arrest was made possible after Ecuador’s government withdrew its asylum and invited in London’s Metropolitan Police.
Assange was initially taken into custody on a minor warrant related to a 2012 failure to surrender to the court, Metropolitan Police said. Almost immediately, however, they announced that American authorities had moved to seize him for extradition.
He appeared in court in London not long after being arrested where he wasreportedly found guiltyon a more minor charge of violating his bail conditions in that earlier case.
Assange’s attorney Jennifer Robinson did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment, but she has cast Assange’s case in terms of press freedom.
Assange “is being sought for prosecution in the United States … for publishing truthful information,” Robinsonsaid earlier this week.
“This is a very serious matter,” she said. “People have children who are 6, 7, years old [and] for their entire lives, he has been living inside that embassy, within a room, without access to medical treatment, without access to the outside world.”
Rob Pinney/LNP/REX/Shutterstock
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty; John Stillwell/PA Wire
While leading WikiLeaks, Assange, 47, has published a vast amount of classified or otherwise secret material from the American government and other high-powered officials around the world — in the name of utter transparency.
“I think Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator,” Clintonsaid in 2017.
Ecuadorian President Lenín Morenosaid on Twitterthat his government had withdrawn Assange’s asylum for “repeatedly violating international conventions.”
ActressPamela Anderson, a friendwho has long defendedAssange,shared her shock on Twitter Thursday.
“He looks very bad,” she wrote. “How could you Equador? … How could you U.K.?”
The scene outside the Ecaudorian Embassy in London where Julian Assange was arrested on Thursday. Inset: Assange.ANDY RAIN/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock; Jack Taylor/Getty Images
Assange’s Embassy Life Before Arrest
After living in a single room for seven years with no access to the outdoors or medical treatment, Assange left the embassy as an almost ghostly figure.
“Julian has become increasingly depressed and his health is very poor due to the deficiencies of living inside for so long,” a close friend who saw Assange “a couple of weeks ago,” tells PEOPLE.
The friend says: “Previously, he had someone shopping and cooking but the new government decided to withdraw that service, so Julian had to organize something with whoever was available to bring him food, whenever they could.”
Some of those closest to him are now actually more scared for health than his freedom.
“He’s a very strong character but obviously it has a toll,” a source says of Assange “It has a physical toll, it has a mental toll, it has an emotional toll and because people think that he is strong they don’t always see that.”
“One time I was on the phone to him and he could hear seagulls in the background,” says a source. “I wasn’t even paying attention to it, but he was like, ‘Oh, seagulls!’ He sounded so wistful because he hadn’t seen or heard seagulls for so long.”
Assange is next due to appear at Southwark Crown Court in London on May 2.
source: people.com
