New information raises further concerns about
the politicisation of the WikiLeaks founder’s
legal case.
By Matt Kennard
- Assange had been
granted asylum by a friendly country to
avoid persecution by the US government
for his journalistic activities
- But Home Office
had eight staff, and the Cabinet Office
had seven, working on secret police
operation to arrest Assange
- Ministry of
Justice, which controls England’s courts
and prisons, refuses to say if its staff
were involved in operation
- Foreign Office
refuses to say if its premises were used
December 02, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- The British
government assigned at least 15 people to
the secret operation to seize Julian Assange
from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, new
information shows.
The WikiLeaks founder
was given political asylum by Ecuador in
2012, but was never allowed safe passage out
of Britain to avoid persecution by the US
government.
The Australian journalist has been in
Belmarsh maximum security prison for the
past three and a half years and faces a
potential
175-year sentence after the UK High
Court
green-lighted his extradition to the US
in December 2021.
‘Pelican’ was the secret Metropolitan
Police operation to seize Assange from his
asylum, which eventually occurred in April
2019. Asylum is a right
enshrined in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.
The operation’s existence was only
revealed in the memoirs of former
foreign minister Sir Alan Duncan which were
published last year. The UK government
routinely blocks, or obfuscates its answers
to, information requests about the Assange
case.
But the Cabinet Office recently
told parliament it had seven officials
working on Operation Pelican. The
department’s
role is to “support the Prime Minister
and ensure the effective running of
government”, but it also has national
security and intelligence
functions.
It is not immediately clear why the
Cabinet Office would have so many personnel
working on a police operation of this kind.
Asked about their role, the Cabinet Office
said these seven officials “liaised”
with the Metropolitan Police on the
operation.
The Home Office, meanwhile, told
parliament it had
eight officials working on Pelican. The
Home Office
oversees MI5 and the head of the
department has to
sign off extraditions to most foreign
countries. Then home secretary Priti Patel
ordered Assange’s extradition to the US
in June.
‘Disproportionate cost’
Other government ministries refused to say if
they had staff working on Pelican, including the
Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
The MoJ is
in charge of courts in England and Wales,
where Assange’s extradition case is currently
deciding whether to hear an appeal. It is also
in control of its prisons, including Belmarsh
maximum security jail where Assange is
incarcerated.
When asked if any of its staff were assigned
to Pelican, the MoJ
claimed: “The information requested could
only be obtained at disproportionate cost.”
It is unclear why the Home Office, a bigger
department with
more staff, could answer such a question,
but the MoJ could not. There is no obvious
reason why the MoJ would have staff assigned to
Pelican, so revelations that it did would cause
embarrassment for the government.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office
told parliament it had no staff “directly
assigned” to Pelican, but refused to say if
people working on the operation were located on
its premises.
‘Julian Assange’s Special Brexit
Team’
Sir Alan Duncan, foreign minister for the
Americas from 2016-19, was the
key UK official in the diplomatic
negotiations between the UK and Ecuador to get
Assange out of the embassy. In his memoirs he
wrote that he
watched a live-feed of Assange’s arrest from
the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign
Office alongside Pelican personnel.
After Assange had been imprisoned in Belmarsh,
Duncan had a drinks party at his office for the
Pelican team. “I gave them each a signed photo
which we took in the Ops Room on the day, with a
caption saying ‘Julian Assange’s Special Brexit
Team 11th April 2019’”, he wrote.
Ecuador’s president from 2007-17, Rafael
Correa,
recently told Declassified he
granted Assange asylum because the
Australian journalist “didn’t have any
possibility of a fair legal process in the
United States.”
He added that the UK government “tried to
deal with us like a subordinate country.”
In September 2021, 30 former US officials
went on the record to
reveal a CIA plot to “kill or kidnap”
Assange in London. In case of Assange leaving
the embassy, the article noted, “US officials
asked their British counterparts to do the
shooting if gunfire was required, and the
British agreed, according to a former senior
administration official.”
These assurances most likely came from the
Home Office.
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reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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