NEW STATEMENT From Assange Legal Team on Today’s U.S. Interrogation of Ecuadorian Diplomats

The WikiLeaks legal team has provided The Gateway Pundit with a new statement asserting that Ecuador allowing the U.S. interrogation of Ecuadorian diplomats is “unscrupulous, lawless behavior” that “is entirely contrary to international norms on refugee protection and press freedoms.”

On Friday, U.S. investigators in Quito began questioning six staff members from the Ecuadorian embassy in London who were stationed there during Assange’s stay as a political refugee. The interrogations are based on a planted fake story in the Guardian claiming that Julian Assange held secret meetings with Paul Manafort in the embassy from 2013 to 2016.

No reporters have been able to find evidence supporting the claims made by the Guardian, the authors have repeatedly published provably false claims about Assange in the past, the embassy is so thoroughly monitored that it would be very simple to prove if it was true, and all parties involved have adamantly denied the claim.

Still, the absurd tale is now being used as the pretext for an international subpoena.

“Ecuador’s new regime has done a 180 turn in relation to protecting Mr. Assange and is now assisting the U.S. government to prosecute him in flagrant violation of its binding legal obligations under refugee law to not do so. The pretext? An indisputably fabricated story planted in the Guardian newspaper citing anonymous Ecuadorian intelligence agents,” the WikiLeaks legal team said in the statement. “Last month The New York Times reported that Ecuador’s current President Lenin Moreno offered to illegally trade Mr. Assange for US ‘debt relief’. This unscrupulous, lawless behavior is entirely contrary to international norms on refugee protection and press freedoms.”

As The Gateway Pundit has previously reported, I visited Assange earlier this month and noticed a marked increase in surveillance on the publisher.

While Ecuador presents this surveillance operation as a mission to “protect and support” Assange, this is contradicted by the fact that he isn’t even allowed to confidentially speak with a reporter and friend without being recorded. In May, the Guardian reported that there are “extraordinary reports” from these spies that include daily logs of Assange’s activities inside the embassy, even noting his “general mood.”

There is no way that Manafort would have been able to sneak in and out without there being a record of it.

The U.S. has significantly ramped up their efforts to extradite Assange and it was recently revealed that there are secret sealed charges against him in Virginia.

The WikiLeaks founder entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 19, 2012. He was soon granted political asylum. The UK has long refused to acknowledge the findings of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), which found that Assange is being arbitrarily and unlawfully detained and must be immediately released without the threat of arrest and compensated.

 

Thanks for sharing!