Presumably the Ecuadorian embassy are no longer offering protection.
A very strange saga from beginning to when/If it ends.
Is this really a big deal, the guy is hardly a saint?
It’s just interesting news. It was to me anyway.
Not a dig at you James.
The story is all over the news with many saying calling it an outrage, can’t see what the problem is as he’s wanted by at least two countries and the Ecuadorians clearly had had enough of protecting him.
Have had for some time, by most accounts.
It is to me too. I imagine the guy is to some extent relieved and won’t be sorry to see the back of the Ecuadorians, their cuisine, and their taste in wallpaper and TV. And they will be happy to see the back of him, and the pantomime surrounding his exile.
I haven’t followed the ins-and-outs if the WikiLeaks saga, but the guy isn’t an axe-murderer and I hope he isn’t subject to US vengefulness for his exposure of dubious diplomatic carrying-ons in the Middle East, or wherever.
At least he can begin to get a healthy tan, he has started to look like something unpleasant that lives under a stone.
The Americans are behind all of this.
They pushed the Swedes to go after him in the first place.
I find the whole 'Wikileaks/Assange" story fascinating - it will be interesting to see if the Americans apply for his extradition in relation to his use of stolen classified material to expose US surveillance methods amongst other things.
This guardian article details the Swedish case - It’s complicated.
He didn’t want to leave but he was given little choice, if the Equadorians are to be believed his behaviour was not great and he even sued the Equadorian government over the treatment he was receiving, I bet TM and co will be glad to see the back of him as he’s cost the UK 0000’s over the last few years.
All due to a regime change in Equador (amongst other things).
Just reinforces the view that you cant trust politicians to keep to their word.
Labour are right to distrust the tories - a change in regime (May goes, BoJo takes over) is their nightmare scenario.
A bit whiffy that around exactly the same time…
a) Assange arrested…
b) Facebook removes the profile of Ecuador’s former president rafael Correa…
c) And in Washington the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $4.2 billion 3 year loan to Ecuador with first instalment of $652 million released Monday…
Seems fairly clear to me Helen 
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Logging in, nobody seems to have mentioned Assange’s release and flight to the US island of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands - a US Commonwealth - for a plea hearing and hopeful further onward travel to Australia - it’s not a done deal yet.
Except of course for @Jane_Williamson and @David_Spardo in cheerful news today, which of course it is, it’s bloody amazing, whatever one’s opinion . There will be much fallout, and as the unfolding event seemed to be slightly buried in the cheerful news, I thought I’d post it here in the most recent Assange thread - from 2019, shows how long the saga has been running / the poor man incarcerated for - (choose your particular view point). Rather than start a new thread though could always change the thread title I suppose.
And of course the original American torture and illegal killing which was exposed has all been forgotten…
I’m glad he’s being returned to Oz.
Yes, the US said that he had put American lives at risk. My answer to that is American lives should not have been in Iraq or Afghaistan in the first place. You reap what you sow.
From the grauniad -
James Clapper was the US director of national intelligence when the trove of classified documents was released in 2010.
In an interview with CNN, Clapper … pointed out that Assange’s actions “could have put at risk people or compromised sources or methods”. But he said that a damage assessment at the time did not reveal any direct proof that assets in Afghanistan or Iraq who were helping the United States were exposed.
Of course the Director of National Intelligence would not make any connection to their abysmal lack of security that allowed a contractor acces to such highly clasified Intelligence and to then be able to go ahead and remove it.
It’s not about whether someone is a contractor or not, as that’s not relevant. It’s about whether he had access appropriate to the role he was doing and whether he had the correct vetting. Plus, of course, whether that vetting was effective. The evidence suggests that, in Snowden’s case, one or more of those three things failed.
Yes, of course, a very good point - that the US relies on severe punishments rather than bother to implement the correct security is a terrible outlier - and in Wikileaks case didn’t work anyway.
However reporting on US war crimes is very likely to be curtailed. So no need to work on security, no one will dare publish anything now, ever again.
I recall there were about 1 million people with such access, to at least some data, I might be mistaken. Clearly role based access wasn’t considered here.
A couple of comments from the trial - the judge stated -
“There’s another significant fact – the government has indicated there is no personal victim here. That tells me the dissemination of this information did not result in any known physical injury.”
A comment from Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack -
What set a chilling precedent is the prosecution … The court today determined no harm was caused by his publication. We know that they were newsworthy, we know that they were quoted by every major news outlet on the planet and we know that they revealed important information. That is called journalism.
That is what has a chilling effect … the United States pursuing journalism as a crime. I hope this is the first and last time this ever occurs.
Australian human rights lawyer and member of Assange’s legal team Jennifer Robinson concluded:
“This sets a dangerous precedent, this prosecution sets a dangerous precedent, that should be of concern to journalist everywhere.
The US is seeking to exercise extraterrestrial jurisdiction over all of you without giving you constitutional free speech protections, and anyone who cares about free speech and democratic accountability should stand against it …
I hope that the fact that we have been able to free Julian Assange today against all of the odds and against one of the most powerful governments in the world will give hope to all journalists and publishers who are imprisoned around the world, and we encourage everyone who stood to fight for Julian to continue the fight for him, and for all of those others in the hope that we can secure their future freedom too.”
The US finds itself in [dis] honourable company, Russia, Egypt spring to mind, plenty of others…