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News > Ecuador

Ecuador Agrees to Deliver Assange’s Documents, Devices to US: Report

  • Ecuador will send Julian Assange's documents to the United States.

    Ecuador will send Julian Assange's documents to the United States. | Photo: Reuters

Published 12 May 2019
Opinion

The Ecuadorean government has agreed to send all of Julian Assange's documents in the embassy in London to the United States. 

The Attorney general of Ecuador has agreed to deliver all of Julian Assange’s personal materials to the United States, according to a report by the Spainish newspaper which says it had seen the official document detailing the agreement. 

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The documents, mobile phones, computer files, memory units, and other devices of the WikiLeaks co-founder are in the Ecuadorean embassy in London where Assange had been residing for the past seven years before being arrested on April 11 by the United Kingdom police with the blessing of the Ecuadorean government. 

According to El Pais, on May 20, at 9 a.m. U.K. time, Assange’s sealed room would be open for police to seize all the materials. The decision had been communicated to his lawyer in Ecuador, Carlos Poveda.

Baltasar Garzon, one of the lawyers of the Australian journalist and activist said that delivering the documents to the U.S. is an  "absolute violation of Ecuador's asylum institution."

Under the former President Rafael Correa’s administration, Assange was given an asylee status in 2012 and later granted Ecuadoran citizenship in December 2017 in the first months of the government of President Lenin Moreno. 

However, since then Moreno began altering that policy towards one in favor of handing Assange over to the U.K. police and eventually allowed them to come to the embassy of his sovereign state and arrest own citizen.

The U.S. had been demanding the extradition of Assange to the country which Ecuador said they would not do. The country’s Department of Justice accuses the activist of "conspiracy" to infiltrate government computers, charges that could result in "a five-year prison sentence."

Nonetheless, Assange’s lawyers are worried that recordings, audios, and documents stolen from the journalist and one of his lawyers have been already sent to the U.S. to provide them with the information about his defense.

Aitor Martinez, another lawyer from Assange’s team said this initiative by Ecuador is a “radical violation of the right to defense, since those documents and electronic devices are filled with communications with the lawyers and their legal documentation... that will allow the U.S. to build and create new charges for its request for extradition."

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