Police can search Assange’s room
Ecuadorean public prosecutors will allow police to search the room Assange occupied for about seven years to seize his personal belongings. The belongings include computers, mobile phones, memory sticks and other electronic devices among other items. In response to a request from the US Department of Justice for cooperation into its investigation into Assange the belongings will be sent to the US.
Assange’s lawyers respond
Aitor Martinez, Assange’s Madrid-based lawyer said that turning over the material was an “absolute violation of the right of defence, because they will hand over to the US all his communications with his lawyers, which are confidential.”
Assange’s lawyer in Ecuador, Carlos Poveda said that he had never been informed of the public prosecutor’s decision. He said he was appealing the permission to seize Assange’s belongings, asking that it be suspended. Should the appeal not be granted, Poveda asked that Assange be present when the room is searched.
However, Assange at present is in a London jail for fifty weeks after being found guilty of jumping bail. Judicial sources in Ecuador say that the public prosecutor’s office has not made the decision public because it is part of an international cooperation document. Apparently, that includes not informing Assange’s lawyer,
Assange facing extradition from the UK to the US
A US indictment charges Assange with conspiracy for working with Chelsea Manning a former US Army Intelligence Officer to try and crack a password stored on US Dept. of Defense computer back in March of 2010. Manning managed to pass on hundreds of thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks many of which revealed for the first time including the killing of two Reuters journalists in a helicopter attack. If convicted, Assange could face up to five years. However, his team of lawyers will fight the extradition process and this could take years.
Sweden reopens its investigation into rape complaints
Swedish prosecutors have decided to reopen its investigation into complaints about alleged rape in 2010. Assange fled to the Ecuadorean embassy so that he would not be extradited to Sweden to answer questions on the complaints. Assange feared that the extradition was simply designed to get him to Sweden and he would then be extradited to the US.
The editor of Wikileaks tried to collect Assange’s belonging about a week ago but as you can see he was not allowed in to the embassy to do so.
