Julian Assange, fugitive founder of WikiLeaks, was arrested arrested in London on Thursday almost seven years after he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange was wanted by British police for skipping bail in August 2012, while he was under investigation for sexual assault and rape in Sweden.
The arrest was made at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been claiming asylum since 2012. Assange was taken into custody at a central London police station, before he’s presented at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
The United States Justice Department has filed criminal charges against 47-year-old Assange, related to the publication of classified documents, a fact that prosecutors accidentally made public in November. He also faces a charge in a British court of jumping bail.
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Assange is also suspected of aiding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by releasing material stolen from the computers of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. In July, the Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking those computers, and the indictment contends that at least one of them was in contact with WikiLeaks.
