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(Reuters) – Ecuador has restored partial Internet access to Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, who fled to the London embassy more than six years ago, a lawyer and a lawyer said on Sunday. Assange.
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on May 19, 2017. REUTERS / Peter Nicholls / Files
The move came nearly six months after the Ecuadorian government suspended its communications in March after talks on social media that could undermine the country's diplomatic relations, including a diplomatic crisis between London and Moscow, as well as Catalan separatism.
"Ecuador cancels the isolation of @JulianAssange," WikiLeaks said in a message on Twitter. The change was also confirmed by Assange's Australian legal advisor, Greg Barns, who called it a "welcome development".
A spokesman for Assange said his communications had only been partially restored.
Assange fled to the London embassy in Ecuador after the British courts ordered his extradition to Sweden and interrogated him in a sexual assault trial. This case has since been closed. Friends and supporters say that Assange now fears being arrested and possibly extradited to the United States after he left the embassy. WikiLeaks, who published the American diplomatic and military secrets when Assange led the operation, faced an investigation by a US grand jury.
"The main problem, the obligation for the UK to pledge that Julian not be extradited to the United States, remains unresolved," Barns told Reuters.
According to friends and supporters of Assange, he had contacts only with lawyers since Ecuador suspended his communications with the outside world. WikiLeaks recently announced that one of Assange's longtime associates, Kristin Hrafnsson, had succeeded him as editor of WikiLeaks.
As the 2016 presidential candidate, President Donald Trump congratulated WikiLeaks for publishing hacked emails that embarrassed Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
But Trump administration officials have sentenced Assange, while a federal grand jury is pursuing a long-standing criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and its staff, a US official recently confirmed.
Report by Mark Hosenball and Michael Holden; Written by David Morgan; Edited by Sandra Maler
