Julian Assange, editor of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police for failing to surrender to a court.
According to a statement by the Metropolitan Police, Assange was arrested at the Embassy of Ecuador in Knightsbridge where he has been resident since June 19 2012. The warrant was issued on June 29 2012.
A statement from the Home Office confirmed that Assange was “arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America” where he is accused of computer related offences.
He will remain in custody at a central London police station before being presented before Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as it is possible.
The Met Police said that it had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster Magistrates' Court, and was invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum.
Before 2012, WikiLeaks released classified cables which contained classified and confidential documents and conversations. It had also released footage from a Baghdad airstrike in 2007 when Iraqi journalists were killed, and later in 2016 it released emails and other documents from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager.
In 2017, it began releasing the “Vault7 and Vault 8” CIA tools and later released source code for the tools.
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