By Pascal Oparada
Social Media/Tech Reporter
Arrested Wikileaks co-founder, Julian Assange is to be extradited to the United States following his arrest inside the Ecuadoran Embassy in London on Thursday.
The Ecuadoran government had dropped his asylum following pressure from both the U.S. and the UK for Assange to face charges of espionage and publishing classified information.
The Met Police in an updated statement said the 47-year-old Assange “has today, Thursday 11 April, been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities, at 10:53hrs after his arrival at a central London police station.
“This is an extradition warrant under Section 73 of the Extradition Act. He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court as soon as possible,” the statement read.
He was rearrested while in the custody of the Met Police custody and is due to appear in court at Westminster today, according to Wikileaks.
Wikileaks also tweeted that Assange was arrested under a U.S. extradition warrant on a conspiracy charge for publishing classified information that was leaked to Wikileaks by former army intelligence analyst and whistleblower, Chelsea Manning who was pardoned by Obama just before he left office early 2017.
He was released from prison that year. However, she was rearrested in March this year for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. Manning remains in prison in the U.S.
