It remains unclear whose faeces was used
Julian Assange ‘smeared poo on the walls’ at the Ecuadorian embassy in London during his seven year stay there when he was claiming asylum, an Ecuadorian minister has claimed.
Assange, who founded the whistleblowing organisation Wikileaks, was dragged out of the embassy yesterday after Ecuador withdrew his right to asylum. The Australian was arrested “on a warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 29 June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court,” before being “further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station.”
His behaviour in the embassy was described as ‘discourteous and aggressive behaviour’ by Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno.
And it doesn’t get much more discourteous than smearing shit on the walls, as Ecuador’s Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo has claimed Assange did.
“During his stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy, the government of the former president Rafael Correa, they tolerated things like Mr Assange putting faeces on the walls of the embassy and other types of behaviour of this kind that is far removed from the minimum respect a guest should have in a country which has generously welcomed him,” she said.
It remains unclear whether Mr Assange used his own faeces, or someone else’s, to allegedly smear on the walls of the embassy.
Shortly after his arrest, Assange was convicted of breaking his bail, meaning he now faces a possible 12 months in prison and maybe even extradition to the United States, where he could be put on trial for publishing classified information.
Assange first sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012, when he skipped bail after an extradition order to Sweden, where someone had accused him of sexual assault. He feared that if he was taken to Sweden, he would be handed to the US authorities.
The sexual assault charges were dropped but Assange refused to leave the embassy, prolonging his self-imposed exile.
