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Updated December 13th, 2018 at 15:14 IST

Julian Assange accuses Ecuador of 'spying'; compares it as 'subtle silencing' to Jamal Khashoggi

Wikileaks co-founder, Julian Assange has blamed host country Ecuador of spying on him and passing on the information to the United States. He has them of attempting to plug his work as a journalist by subtly silencing him, comparing Jamal Khashoggi's murder.

Reported by: Aishwaria Sonavane
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Wikileaks co-founder, Julian Assange has blamed host country Ecuador of spying on him and passing on the information to the United States. He has them of attempting to plug his work as a journalist by subtly silencing him, comparing Jamal Khashoggi's murder.

He proposed that there were "facts of espionage" at the embassy. Assange expressed his concerns at the hearing in Quito on December 12, that the Ecuadorean intelligence is disclosing information to the FBI. He further claimed that the intelligence of Ecuador has generously invested finances inside the embassy for surveillance. 

He drew accusation on authorities of Ecuador of "comments of a threatening nature" pertaining to his journalistic work. The comparison that Assange made to Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was brutally killed in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, but a little more "subtle." The comparison induced a grating response from Inigo Salvador, Ecuadorean Prosecutor General, who denounced Assange of being ungrateful to the country that provided him political asylum. 

READ| Ecuador Is Seeking To End My Asylum: Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange. Read Here

The whistleblower complained to the Ecuadorean court of his living conditions in the embassy being inimical to his health and that they might send him to the hospital. He prompted that this might be the point, as Assange leaving the embassy is a clear stage for the United Kingdom and the United States. 

United States prosecutors fortuitously disclosed the existence of a charge against Assange last month, stirring curiosity. 

The exact nature of the charges against Assange was not immediately known.

"SCOOP: US Department of Justice 'accidentally' reveals the 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.

The still-unsealed charges against Assange were revealed by Assistant US Attorney Kellen Dwyer as he made a filing in the unrelated case and urged a judge to keep that filing sealed.

READ| "If I Don't Get What I Want, I Am Going To Shut Down The Government," Threatened A 72 Year Old US President Donald Trump

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.

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Published December 13th, 2018 at 14:57 IST

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