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"Wikileaks
has uncovered an extensive spying operation against Julian
Assange within the Ecuadorean embassy," Kristinn Hrafnsson,
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief said, adding that Assange's "eviction"
from the embassy could happen at any time.
Hrafnsson did not immediately give evidence for his claims.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the allegations.
Assange's relations with his hosts have chilled since Ecuador
accused him of leaking information about President Lenin
Moreno’s personal life. Moreno has said Assange has violated the
terms of his asylum.
To some, Assange is a hero for exposing what supporters cast as
abuse of power by modern states and for championing free speech.
But to others, he is a dangerous rebel who has undermined the
security of the United States.
"We know that there was a request to hand over visitors' logs
from the embassy and video recordings from within the security
cameras in the embassy," Hrafnsson told reporters, adding that
he assumed the information had been handed over to the
administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Assange took refuge in the embassy to avoid being extradited to
Sweden where authorities wanted to question him as part of a
sexual assault investigation. That probe was later dropped but
WikiLeaks fears the United States wants to prosecute him.
WikiLeaks angered Washington by publishing hundreds of thousands
of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that laid bare often highly
critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders from Russian President
Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.
Assange made international headlines in early 2010 when
WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a
2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in
Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff.
Later that year, the group released over 90,000 secret documents
detailing the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan,
followed by almost 400,000 internal U.S. military reports
detailing operations in Iraq.
More than 250,000 classified cables from U.S. embassies
followed, then almost 3 million dating back to 1973.
(Writing by Kate Holton and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by
Stephen Addison)
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