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Breaking News
posted by FatPhil on Thursday April 11 2019, @01:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the shoulda-taken-the-tea-chest-option-years-back dept.

Breaking: Met police confirm that Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy.

Mr Assange took refuge in the embassy seven years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that has since been dropped.

The Met Police said he was arrested for failing to surrender to the court.

Ecuador's president Lenin Moreno said it withdrew Mr Assange's asylum after his repeated violations to international conventions.

But WikiLeaks tweeted that Ecuador had acted illegally in terminating Mr Assange's political asylum "in violation of international law".

[...] Scotland Yard said it was invited into the embassy by the ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum.

After his arrest for failing to surrender to the court, police said he had been further arrested on behalf of US authorities under an extradition warrant.

He doesn't look happy, to say the least.

Update: As this is a breaking story, more information is coming out regularly - one source that updates their reports frequently is Zero Hedge - thanks boru!

Previously: New Analysis of Swedish Police Report Confirms Julian Assange's Version in Sweden's Case
Ecuador Reportedly Almost Ready to Hand Julian Assange Over to UK Authorities
UK Said Assange Would Not be Extradited If He Leaves Embassy Refuge
Inadvertent Court Filing Suggests that the U.S. DoJ is Preparing to Indict Julian Assange
U.S. Ramping Up Probe Against Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Says
Ecuador Denies That Julian Assange Will be Evicted From Embassy in London


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 11 2019, @05:19PM (8 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 11 2019, @05:19PM (#828124) Journal

    I'd take all the pussy they threw at me

    If you remember the details, that's just about what happened. Both of the women involved in this sordid little affair seduced HIM, not the other way around.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @07:26PM (#828202)

    I'm still somewhat on the fence as to whether that was a honey trap. It just so happened to happen right after his big leaks in 2010, and Sweden had promised the US to send him there when they were done with him. That strikes me as suspicious.

  • (Score: 3, Flamebait) by Magic Oddball on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:11PM (6 children)

    by Magic Oddball (3847) on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:11PM (#828265) Journal

    No, his supporters claimed that the women seduced him. According to the official police complaint [theguardian.com]:

    One of the women, named in court as Miss A, told police that she had arranged Assange's trip to Sweden, and let him stay in her flat because she was due to be away. She returned early, on Friday 13 August, after which the pair went for a meal and then returned to her flat.

    Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.

    According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.

    The second woman, "Ms. W", states that while she contacted him with the idea of hooking up, she made it abundantly clear that she never had sex without a condom and refused to do so; her ex-boyfriend told police that they'd never had sex without a condom as she found the idea "unthinkable." Later that night, Assange reluctantly put one on later that night in order to get laid, but upon finding her asleep the next morning, decided to screw her bareback anyway.

    So the first woman didn't seduce him at all, and the second one had a mutual hookup with him before he decided to violate her wishes once she wasn't awake enough to protest.

    Not to mention that even if somebody invites a person to their home, lets them in wearing sexy attire and begins to get intimate, the minute either of them begins clearly objecting to an activity, continuing to do it or waiting for them to be unable to protest isn't acceptable or legal behavior.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Pav on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:32PM (5 children)

      by Pav (114) on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:32PM (#828375)

      That's a misleading framing of events. NEITHER of the women had a problem until they found out about eachother, and they approached the police NOT to press charges, but to find a way they could force Assange to take a sexually transmitted disease test, which apparently they couldn't. A prosecutor in a different part of the country caught wind of this, and in a highly irregular way tried to get the women to press charges. One refused outright, and the other withdrew her support years later. A well respected Australian investigative reporter travelled to Sweden at the time to find out exactly what was going on [abc.net.au], and the political intrigue surrounding Wikileaks and the Pirate Party etc...

      • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:41PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:41PM (#828384)

        That's a misleading framing of events. NEITHER of the women had a problem until they found out about eachother

        And THAT is a misleading framing of events. It can take a while for people to process things that happen to them, especially things they have no frame of reference for. The fact that finding out about each other's experiences prompted them to start re-examining what happened to them doesn't invalidate the conclusions they eventually came too. Smart people change their minds given new information, its pedantry to stubbornly insist that a better understanding doesn't allow you to re-evaluate how you feel about something that happened to you.

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by Pav on Friday April 12 2019, @12:17AM (2 children)

          by Pav (114) on Friday April 12 2019, @12:17AM (#828398)

          But there's no evidence to suggest what you're saying... actually quite the contrary. Both were angry at his two-timing, and the younger in particular was afraid of being infected with an STD. That investigative report I posted above says they a) wanted to publicly embarrass him (and presumably warn other women he was a womaniser, but the report doesn't specifically mention that warning others was part of their motivation), and b) force him to take an STD test. Both are on record saying they didn't feel they had been raped. Highly irregularly they were contacted by a prosecutor from another part of the country. Why would something like that happen? Presumably one of them was helped or perhaps even pressured into a different conclusion at a later date, though the other refused that "help".

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @01:49AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @01:49AM (#828429)

            Your linked article isn't even close to conclusive. The women don't speak and their lawyer gets about 4 lines in the entire interview, meanwhile pro-assange people are spouting off left and right.

            For you to claim that it is some kind of straight-up, even-handed analysis reveals that you are crazy biased and nobody should trust a word you say.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Friday April 12 2019, @08:26AM

            by ledow (5567) on Friday April 12 2019, @08:26AM (#828530) Homepage

            Guess what most rape / sexual assault victims do when the world's press suddenly starts focusing on them, interviewing them, pursuing them, questioning them about their sex life?

            They drop charges and don't want to discuss it.

            There's a reason that a prosecutor is able to continue to press charges even if the victims themselves won't proceed.

            You can no more assume that Assange is telling the truth than the women, so don't pretend you can.

            Asking a sexual partner for an STD test after they have had sex with you unprotected is a not-unreasonable request. It's not like Assange denies having sex with them at all, in any way, whatsoever. They just want him to get tested.

            If it had been the other way round and Assange thought he caught something from them, you can be damn sure that he'd want them to get tested, and that would have been aired to the world's press at the time, too.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 12 2019, @02:46PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 12 2019, @02:46PM (#828615) Journal

          #metoo