LONDON, April 11, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “is no
hero”, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Thursday following his
arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
“What is not acceptable is for someone to escape facing justice and he had
tried to do that for a very long time and that is why he is no hero,” Hunt
said in a statement.
“He has hidden from the truth for years and years and it is right that his
future should be decided in the British judicial system,” he added.
Assange had been living at Ecuador’s embassy in London’s plush
Knightsbridge district since 2012 when he sought refuge there after being
accused of sexual assault in Sweden.
The Metropolitan Police said it arrested Assange for breaching his bail
conditions dating back to that period, and that he is also being held over an
extradition request from the United States.
There he potentially faces a far more serious case linked to the
publication of classified US defence material.
Hunt hailed his arrested as “the result of years of careful diplomacy” with
Ecuador and praised the country’s President Lenin Moreno as having made “a
very courageous decision” to allow it.
He added Assange had been “holding the Ecuadorian Embassy hostage in a
situation that was absolutely intolerable for them.
“This will now be decided properly, independently by the British legal
system respected throughout the world for its independence and integrity and
that is the right outcome,” Hunt said.
Britain’s foreign secretary said London was “not making any judgement about
(his) innocence or guilt” and that was “for the courts to decide”.
“What we’ve shown today is that no one is above the law,” Hunt said.