Ecuador shreds Julian Assange's citizenship
- Reference: 1627453743
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/28/ecuador_shreds_julian_assanges_citizenship/
- Source link:
An administrative court in Quito, Ecuador cited irregularities in the naturalization process – including the use of different signatures, potential document alterations, failure to pay fees, and a failure to reside in the country – as reasons the grant of citizenship was invalid. The court also assessed Assange's application interview as "undue and illegal".
Assange was notified he had lost his citizenship in a letter responding to a claim from Ecuador's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility. His less than happy lawyer, Carlos Poveda, said he will file for an annulment of the decision.
[1]
The Wikileaks founder was granted Ecuadorian citizenship as part of a [2]plan to appoint him as a diplomat and use the immunity that status confers to get him out of the South American country's embassy in London, where he spent seven years confined to an office turned makeshift studio apartment.
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The UK foiled Ecuador's plan to rid itself of an [5]allegedly horrendous flatmate by refusing to register Assange as a diplomat.
Assange ended up in the embassy in the first place because he was seeking asylum from Swedish authorities investigating alleged sexual offences. Sweden [6]discontinued that investigation in 2019.
[7]NSO Group 'will no longer be responding to inquiries' about misuse of its software
[8]No joy for Julian Assange as Uncle Sam confirms it will keep pushing for WikiLeaker's extradition to America
[9]I can 'proceed without you', judge tells Julian Assange after courtroom outburst
The leaker-in-chief eventually exited the embassy under duress, was convicted of skipping bail on his way there, and is presently fighting extradition proceedings as the USA seeks to [10]try him for espionage on US soil.
As a citizen of Australia, Assange retains the right to serve any sentence in his home country, following conviction, sentencing and an application to do so. The application would be pending US approval, to which the USA has already agreed.
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Losing Ecuadorian citizenship probably won't overly trouble Assange, as the nation fell out of love with the leaker and his cause to the extent that they facilitated his arrest and removal from the London embassy. Nor has Ecuador visibly supported his fight against extradition to the USA. ®
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[2] https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/12/ecuador_tried_to_make_julian_assange_a_diplomat/
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2018/10/19/julian_assange_ecuador_legal_fight/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/19/julian_assange_sweden_rape_investigation_dropped/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/22/nso_group_denies_everything_stops_answering_questions/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/10/julian_assange_dept_justice/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/09/assange_extradition_hearing_london/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/08/assange_us_to_appeal_extradition_ruling/
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[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
You mean resist punching him in the face ?
Most probably.
Journalist prosecution
The article started by reporting on new development from Ecuador, but then summarized whole saga and omitted most key facts of the saga. Just a few of them: rape case was so weak that Sweden wanted to drop the case long time ago but was pressured by UK (probably on US account) to keep the case open (turned out later that the rape case was just a placeholder until US builds a spy case, as Assange said from the start), CIA spied on Assange in Ecuador Embassy, UK judge justified it by citing debunked CNN report based on CIA spying, US blocked loans to Ecuador unless they deliver Assange, main witness against Assange in the US case admitted he lied... and many more. US simply wants him for revealing true information, many embarrassing things about US politics, no lies were ever found in Wikileaks reporting. In other words, US and UK prosecuting a journalist for publishing truth.
Re: Journalist prosecution
Some more facts for you:
If the rape case was so weak, he would've done better by turning up and explaining why he did what he did. If it was as weak as you claim (it wasn't), he could've dealt with it before they could file any extradition paperwork. Running away just makes you look guilty.
Sweden dropped the case because their statute of limitations expired.
If he wanted to avoid a hypothetical extradition process, he would've been better staying in Sweden than fleeing to a country which has a famously generous extradition arrangement with the US. Or he could've gone to pretty much any other country and had less chance of being extradited. No, he chose to flee to the country most likely to hand him over to the US.
Re: Journalist prosecution
Mr Assange offered to be interviewed by video link. That I think was not allowed under Swedish law, and they wouldn't make any special arrangements for this. In the end the prosecutor Fru Ny was going to interview Assange at the embassy.... until she pulled out at the last minute. Why?
Whilst he was still in Sweden for a few weeks after the event (August), they had plenty of time to bring him in for questioning, but didn't. Why? He asked if he was allowed to leave Sweden (as part of his original schedule), and was told no problem, so he did.
Once he left Sweden, something changed (Novemberish) that resulted in a European arrest warrant. Surely it would have been much easier to issue an arrest warrant while he was still in Sweden, and/or deny his request to leave. Why the delay? It's not like the interview suites were booked up for the next 3 months.
Re: Journalist prosecution
Swedish law apparently requires you to be interviewed before you can be charged. You're then charged at that interview. He was clearly not considered a flight risk by the Swedes - as they texted his lawyer the night he fled the country - to come in for a charge interview the next morning. The lawyer denied this in one of the UK hearings and then was forced to produce his phone and show the text message still on there.
At which point they issued the European arrest warrant.
Re: Journalist prosecution
I thought the UK prosecuted him because he skipped bail?
use of different signatures
My signature is different every time these days. My penmanship was never good, and working in IT doesn't give much opportunity to hand write stuff for other people to read... which is good because they probably couldn't read it.
Back to our story, seems Ecuador might be smelling the week old fish that is JA.
Re: use of different signatures
Seems very odd. There can't be any doubt of his identity - he was in their embassy for 7 bloody years. You'd have thought the people processing it might just recognise him by that point...
However, who'd be surprised if he'd lied about some documents - which is a nice excuse to reverse an embarassing mistake they made. Seems a bit harsh though to blame him for not living in Ecuador in order to keep his citizenship. It's not like he's had much choice of accommodation, since they kicked him out of the embassy.
Ok, who was it...
...who nicked the bribe out of the document bundle before it got to the court?
This is an incredibly nasty piece of reporting. Is revealing innocent Iraqi's being murdered by US soldiers make Assange contender for "couch-surfing world record"? Is being forced to live in a room for 7 years due to bogus charges, charges that Sweden wished to withdraw but was not allowed to due to pressure from the UK and US, something to make fun off and mock? Will you start mocking his continued solitary confident for up to 23hours a day at Belmarsh Prison despite having won his case. Will you be making fun of other journalists imprisoned or killed for exposing the lies and crimes of the powerful?
Resist, resist
I can remember him getting taken out of the Ecuadorian embassy shouting resist resist.
If you know his alledged history I wonder if they tried to do that!!!!