ECUADOR REVOKES ASSANGE'S CITIZENSHIP

A court in Ecuador has revoked Julian Assange's citizenship.

The South American country has formally notified the WikiLeaks founder of the nullity of his naturalisation in a letter. The letter followed a claim filed by the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry.

Assange has lived inside Ecuador's embassy in London since 2012. He fled there to avoid being extradited to Sweden where he faced allegations of rape and sexual assault. He received Ecuadorian citizenship in 2018, when former President Lenin Moreno tried to make him a diplomat in order to get him out of the country.

Since WikiLeaks published thousands of leaked US military and diplomatic documents, prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison, reports NPR.

The Australian is currently in Belmarsh Prison in London, where he has been since his arrest in 2019. The now 50-year-old skipped bail seven years earlier in a legal battle completely separate from the Swedish or US matters.

Earlier this year the US government requested that Assange be moved to a prison in the US to face espionage charges. A British court denied this request, but the British High Court recently granted the US government permission to appeal that decision.

Image credit: Daily Maverick