WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged in America, the US Justice Department has accidentally revealed.
Prosecutors inadvertently disclosed the existence of a sealed indictment in a court filing in an unrelated case, WikiLeaks said today.
The exact nature of the charges against the 47-year-old whistleblower, who was behind a massive dump of classified US documents in 2010, was not immediately known.
Assange has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 when he was accused of sexual assault by two women in Sweden. He denied their claims but refused to travel to Sweden to face them, saying it was part of a ruse to extradite him to the US.
'SCOOP: US Department of Justice "accidentally" reveals existence of sealed charges (or a draft for them) against WikiLeaks' publisher Julian Assange in apparent cut-and-paste error in an unrelated case also at the Eastern District of Virginia,' Wikileaks wrote on Twitter.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (pictured) has been charged in the United States, the organisation said
The US Justice Department inadvertently disclosed the existence of a sealed indictment in a court filing in an unrelated case, WikiLeaks said today. The exact nature of the charges against the 47-year-old whistleblower (pictured), who was behind a massive dump of classified US documents in 2010, was not immediately known
The still-unsealed charges against Assange were revealed by Assistant US Attorney Kellen Dwyer as she made a filing in the unrelated case and urged a judge to keep that filing sealed.
Dwyer wrote: 'Due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged,' according to The Washington Post.
The charges would 'need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested,' Dwyer wrote.
The document is part of an unrelated criminal case involving a 29-year-old man charged with enticing a 15-year-old girl.
In that case, the judge wrote in a detention memo that the defendant, Seitu Sulayman Kokayi, 'has had a substantial interest in terrorist acts.'
Reuters was unable to immediately trace contact details for Kokayi.
But Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the prosecutors' office which filed the document that was unsealed, told Reuters, 'The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.'
Federal prosecutors have been investigating Assange over WikiLeaks' 2010 publication of a trove of US diplomatic cables that proved an acute embarrassment to Washington.
But the charging of Assange in the US could have implications for special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into whether Donald Trump's election campaign team colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential vote, and whether Trump tried to obstruct the probe into that.
Ecqaudor's new President Lenin Moreno (pictured) described Assange as a 'stone in our shoe'
In July, Mueller charged 12 Russian spies with conspiring to hack Democratic National Committee computers, stealing data from the organisation and publishing those files in an effort to sway the election.
One of the indictments referred to WikiLeaks, described as 'Organization 1,' as the platform the Russians used to release the stolen emails.
US media were alerted late on Thursday to the inadvertent disclosure, thanks to a tweet from Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. He is known to follow court filings closely.
U.S. officials have previously acknowledged that federal prosecutors based in Alexandria have been conducting a lengthy criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and its founder.
Representatives of the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have publicly called for Assange to be aggressively prosecuted.
Assange and his supporters have periodically said U.S. authorities had filed secret criminal charges against him, an assertion against which some U.S. officials pushed back until recently.
Prosecutors have considered publicly indicting Assange to try to trigger his removal from the embassy, the Wall Street Journal reported.
This is because a detailed explanation of the evidence against Assange could give Ecuadorean authorities a reason to turn him over.
Head of the National Security Division John Demers had said 'we'll see' when asked about the possibilty of prosecuting John Demers recently
The exact charges Justice Department might pursue remain unclear, but it is understood they may involve the Espionage Act, which criminalises the disclosure of national defense-related information.
When asked about the possibility of prosecuting Assange last week, the head of the Justice Department's national security division John Demers said: 'On that, I'll just say, we'll see'.
Assange has been holed up at Ecuador's embassy in London since 2012, where he took refuge over fears of being extradited to the US over the 2010 WikiLeaks cable dump.
Assange was initially welcomed into the embassy, but a change in government and disputes over his living situation - including arguments involving his cat - mean Ecuadorian officials are trying to get him out.
Ecuadorean authorities last March began to crack down on his access to outsiders and for a time cut off his internet access.
Last month, Assange sued Ecuador over the conditions of his confinement.
At a hearing last month, a judge rejected Assange's claims and he said he expected to be forced out of the embassy soon.
Assange's lawyer Carlos Poveda told Sputnik today that he believed the UK, US and Ecuador had 'reached some agreement and that is exactly why the special protocol [on home rules] was introduced, which is to justify Julian’s withdrawal [from the embassy], to accelerate the process of ending his asylum and hand him over to the UK authorities.
The lawyer suggested that America planned to impose a 'grave' charge on his client.
'It will not be a death penalty but he may get a life sentence,' Poveda said.
Assange speaks on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy after Swedish authorities announced that they dropped their investigation into rape allegations against him
He was originally wanted in London after a British judge ruled he should be extradited to face allegations of sexual assault in Sweden.
The Swedish case has since been dropped, but Britain still wants him to face justice over breaching his bail conditions following his arrest on the sexual assault allegations.
Barry J. Pollack, one of Assange's attorneys, said, 'The only thing more irresponsible than charging a person for publishing truthful information would be to put in a public filing information that clearly was not intended for the public and without any notice to Mr. Assange,' the Post said.
Pollack said he did not know if Assange has been charged.
Link hienalouca.comhttps://hienalouca.com/2018/11/16/julian-assange-charged-justice-department-reveal-they-have-begun-prosecuting-the-wikileaks-founder/
Main photo article WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged in America, the US Justice Department has accidentally revealed.
Prosecutors inadvertently disclosed the existence of a sealed indictment in a court filing in an unrelated case, WikiLeaks said today.
The exact nature of the charges against the...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
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