Julian Assange
US intelligence agencies planned to poison or kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, writes The Guardian.
The details of the operation came to light thanks to a former employee of the private security company UC Global, with whom US intelligence discussed ways to get rid of the journalist. He is a witness in the case of Assange's extradition.
According to him, in 2017, the American special services offered the head of UC Global, David Morales, to take “more radical measures.” “It was proposed to leave the door of the Ecuadorian embassy open so that you could go inside and kidnap or poison Assange,” he said in court.
The management of the security company instructed the employee to install new cameras in the diplomatic mission that could record sound, as well as conduct live broadcasts. According to Morales, this was necessary so that “so that friends in the United States” could see and hear everything that was happening at the embassy in real time.
Such instructions alarmed the man. He told his superiors that it was technically impossible to do this, in response, Morales sent him detailed instructions. “It is obvious that the document was provided by a third party. And this side, according to the witness, was US intelligence, ”said Assange's lawyer Mark Summers.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed 17 charges against Assange in May 2019, later adding another. In case of extradition to the United States, which is currently under way, the founder of WikiLeaks faces up to 175 years in prison. The current President of the States, Donald Trump, claimed that he was ready to pardon Assange if he named the source from whom he received the texts of letters from the hacked servers of the Democratic Party in 2016.
In 2012, fearing extradition to Sweden due to rape charges (the case was dropped in 2019), Assange applied for asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. There he was continuously for almost seven years. Assange is currently serving a prison sentence in the UK for violating bail conditions.
