Ecuador Strips WikiLeaks Founder, Julian Assange Of Citizenship
- Authorities cite unpaid fees, problems with naturalisation papers
Ecuador has officially revoked the citizenship of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, who is currently in a British prison.
The country’s justice system formally notified the Australian that his naturalisation is nullified in a letter that came in response to a claim filed by the South American country’s Foreign Ministry.
Naturalisation is reconsidered when it is granted based on the concealment of relevant facts, false documents or fraud. And Ecuadorian authorities said Assange’s naturalisation letter had multiple inconsistencies, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents, and unpaid fees, among other issues.
However, Assange’s lawyer, Carlos Poveda, is questioning the decision, saying it was made without due process and Assange was not allowed to appear in the case.
Poveda claimed that; “On the date [Assange] was cited, he was deprived of his liberty and with a health crisis inside the deprivation of liberty centre where he was being held.”
Poveda said an appeal will be filed seeking an amplification and clarification of the decision, adding that; “More than the importance of nationality, it is a matter of respecting rights and following due process in withdrawing nationality.”
Assange received Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018 as part of a failed attempt by the government of then-President Lenín Moreno to turn him into a diplomat to get him out of its embassy in London.
On Monday, the Pichincha Court for contentious administrative matters revoked this decision.
Ecuador’s foreign ministry said the Court had “acted independently and followed due process in a case that took place during the previous government and that was raised by the same previous government”.
Assange, 50, has been in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London since his arrest in April 2019 for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle.
The WikiLeaks’ founder had spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador’s London embassy, where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault, which he denied.
Sweden later dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.
However, US prosecutors have indicted him on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Earlier this month, Britain’s High Court granted the US government permission to appeal against a decision that the WikiLeaks founder cannot be sent to the United States to face espionage charges.
In January, a lower court judge had refused an American request to send Assange to the US for trial – With The Guardian reports
