Ecuador revokes citizenship for Julian Assange

Ecuador this week revoked the citizenship of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who is currently in a British prison.

Ecuador's justice system formally notified the Australian of the nullity of his naturalization in a letter that came in response to a claim filed by the South American country's Foreign Ministry.

A naturalization is considered damaging when it is granted based on the concealment of relevant facts, false documents or fraud.

Ecuador's Deputy Minister of Human Mobility, Carlos Alberto Velastegui, told the AP documents linked to Assange's application featured "a series of irregularities".

But Carlos Poveda, Assange's lawyer, said the decision was made without due process, and Assange was not allowed to appear in the case.

"We even requested that he appear by virtual call at the final hearing. However he was not given this opportunity," Poveda said.

"I find odd and strange that after the hearing, this court took 12 minutes to resolve a matter of great importance, not only nationally but internationally," he continued.

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.

Assange, 50, has been in London' high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle.

Assange 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.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

US prosecutors have indicted Assange 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.

US prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published.

Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, Britain's High Court granted the US government permission to appeal 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.

IMAGE: AP