(Sept. 29) The private Spanish security company UC Global SL hired to protect the Ecuadorian London embassy while Julian Assange Wikileaks founder sought refuge there is alleged to have spied on him for the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The report
According to a recent article: "A report in Spanish newspaper El Pais said the company, UC Global SL, allegedly handed over audio and video to the CIA of meetings Assange held with his lawyers.The company is being investigated over the claims by Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, said the report."
Assange has himself filed a criminal complaint in which he accuses the company of violating his privacy and also the secrecy of his client-attorney privileges. Given that the company is alleged to have provided audio and video of Assange's meeting with his lawyers to the CIA this creates even more doubts about whether Assange will ever be able to receive a fair trial should he ever be extradited to the US.
El Pais newpaper said that UC Global SL did not respond to requests for comments on its claims.
Background
While on bail in 2012 while facing extradition hearings to be sent to Sweden to answer questions on sex charges Assange sought and was granted refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. He feared that his extradition to Sweden was a step on the way to being extradited to the US. However, this April Assange was forcibly removed from the embassy and turned over to UK authorities.
In June this year the US formally requested his extradition from the UK on 18 charges including the unauthorized disclosure of national defense information. What really irritates the US is that Assange revealed some of the misdeeds of the US military including the famous video of a Baghdad attack by Apache helicopters that killed among others 2 Reuters personnel. Reuters at the time reported: "Classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, was released on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption."
The US formally requested his extradition in June on 18 charges, including computer misuse and the unauthorised disclosure of national defence information. Assange is accused also of working with whistle-blower and former US army intelligence operative Chelsea Manning.
Assange at present
Assange was jailed for 50 weeks in Belmarsh prison in London for violating his bail conditions. Although he was due to be released next he will remain in custody right up until the US extradition hearing that does not take place until February of next year.
An article at the end of May reports: "On the eighth of April, shortly before London police forcibly carried WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy, a doctor named Sondra S Crosby wrote a letter to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights requesting that the office look into Assange’s case. Today, following a scorching rebuke of multiple governments by UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer, mass media outlets around the world are reporting that Julian Assange has been found to be the victim of brutal psychological torture." In spite of all this and Assange's continuing ill health he remains in jail. Instead of joining in with those who are demanding his release and criticizing his treatment many in the mainstream press continue with an attempt to smear his character. Whatever Assange's faults he deserves praise not further punishment for his revelations about misdeeds by the US military.
Previously published in the Digital Journal
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