Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates court on April 11, 2019 in London, England. After weeks of speculation Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by Scotland Yard Police Officers inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in Central London this morning.
The Justice Department just unveiled an 18 count indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for his role in eliciting classified documents that exposed U.S. government sources in the Middle East. You can read the full indictment below.
John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said that Assange published a “narrow subset” of documents that revealed the identity of sources in Afghanistan and Iraq. Demers said that no “responsible” journalist would have published these documents.
“The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy and we thank you for it,” Demers said. “It has not and never has been the department’s policy to target them for reporting. But Julian Assange is no journalist.”
Wikileaks responded on Twitter: “This is madness. It is the end of national security journalism and the first amendment.”
This indictment comes after Assange was indicted in April on one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for his role in Chelsea Manning‘s leaking of thousands of highly sensitive government documents in 2010. The main allegation in that indictment is that in March 2010, “Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense Computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network,” which is used to handle classified documents. This agreement happened after Manning had already given WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of documents.
There were hints that the government was seeking new charges against Assange when Manning was served with a subpoena for her testimony against Assange. Assange allegedly helped Manning hack government computers, tried to hide Manning’s role in leaks, and encouraged her continue leaking. Last week, Chelsea Manning was jailed for refusing to comply with the subpoena.
Julian Assange 18 Count Indictment by Law&Crime on Scribd
[Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images]
