MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On August 16, 2012, Ecuador decided to grant Assange asylum after weeks of consideration of evidence proving he had been a target of politically motivated harassment, thus helping him to avoid persecution by the United States, where he could face multiple espionage charges.
Julian Paul Assange was born on July 3, 1971 in the north Queensland city of Townsville, Australia.
When he was a year old, his mother married Richard Brett Assange, the director of a wandering theater company. Julian had a nomadic childhood, traveling around with his family. When Assange was eight, his mother divorced her husband and became involved with Leif Meynell, a member of the controversial Australian New Age group The Family, with whom she had a son. As the group took newborns away from their mothers, the woman and her sons ran away from Meynell. It happened before Julian turned 16.
Assange studied mathematics and physics at several Australian universities, including Central Queensland University, Australian National University and the University of Melbourne, but did not complete a degree.
Assange began his hacking “career” at the age of 16, when he created an organization called Worms Against Nuclear Killers (WANK) together with friends. They became well-known in October 1989, when the abbreviation WANK appeared on the NASA computer network just before the space shuttle Atlantis landed.
In their activities, the hackers followed the following rules: “Don't damage computer systems you break into; don't change the information in those systems; and share information”.
In 1991, Assange was found hacking into the computer system of Nortel, a multinational telecommunications corporation, and was prosecuted.
In 1994, a court ordered him to pay a symbolic fine and released him due to the perceived absence of malicious or mercenary intent. Meanwhile, unable to cope with the stress, Assange's wife left him, taking their two-year child with her.
After that, Assange changed several IT jobs, developed a number of network security and routing programs, and was even an adviser on computer security systems.
In 1997, he contributed research to the book called Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, authored by Australian journalist Suelette Dreyfus. In 1998, Assange traveled around the world, and also visited Russia.
In 1998, he co-founded the company Earthmen Technology with the aim of developing network intrusion detection technologies.
Assange led a team of nine project coordinators. He did not describe himself as its “founder” but only as “editor-in-chief,” acknowledging that he had the final say in posting documents on the website.
In 2008, the US Army Counterintelligence Center designated WikiLeaks a potential threat to the military.
Assange won the Amnesty International UK Media Award in 2009 for a series of materials exposing corruption in Kenya.
In July 2010, around 77,000 secret Afghanistan war logs were published by WikiLeaks.
On November 28, 2010, US secret diplomatic cables were made public.
Assange admitted that he and his associates had to take precautions as they received threats. He drifted around the world, spending most of the time in Sweden, where in August 2010 he became a columnist for the daily Aftonbladet. Later the same month Swedish police put the Wikileaks founder on a wanted list for questioning on two counts of rape alleged to have been committed against two women. Assange denied the allegations, and his arrest warrant was soon recalled, as prosecutors decided that the suspicions against him were groundless.
On December 7, Assange was arrested by London police after turning himself in to the authorities.
On December 16, London’s High Court released Assange on cash guarantees of 240,000 pounds pending examination of Sweden’s extradition request.
In 2010, Assange received the Time readers' choice award for person of the year.
In 2010, Assange was placed 58th in Guardian's annual list of the top 100 most influential figures in UK media.
On February 24, 2011, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled to extradite Assange to Sweden.
The WikiLeaks founder subsequently lost a series of appeals.
In November 2011, Australian journalists awarded WikiLeaks the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism.
On May 30, 2012, Britain’s Supreme Court refused his extradition appeal.
As of June 2012, Assange has been taking refuge in the embassy of Ecuador in London. Swedish authorities demand his extradition from Britain. Ecuador is granting Assange political asylum on August 16, 2012, but British authorities say they are determined to “honor their obligations” to Sweden.
Assange’s lawyers argue that the 2010 arrest warrant should be cancelled on the grounds that during all these years, Swedish investigators have failed to question him because they consider it counterproductive to travel to London to question a suspect. Nevertheless, on July 16, 2014, a Stockholm court denied the lawyers’ plea and upheld the warrant. On September 12, Assange's lawyers challenged the ruling. In November, the Swedish Court of Appeal for Svealand upheld its arrest warrant for the WikiLeaks founder.
In the spring of 2011, media reports said that Assange would write his autobiography to cover legal costs, for which he would receive over 1 million British pounds ($1.5 million). In late September, 2011, Canongate, a Scottish publishing firm, published the book without Assange’s consent.
According to the publishers, Assange signed a contract to write the book, but after sitting with a ghost writer for more than 50 hours of taped interviews, he was unhappy with the first version of the book, thinking it was too intimate. Because Assange had been paid an advance and had not returned the money, Canongate went ahead and published the book under the title Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography.
In April 2012, Russian broadcaster Russia Today (RT) launched Assange’s exclusive project, called The World Tomorrow. It is television discussion series featuring Assange as host.
In September 2014, Assange’s book When Google Met WikiLeaks was published in English. On December 3, the author made a video presentation for Madrid in Spanish. In his book, Assange claims that Google has collaborated with the US government, specifically the State Department.
In October 2014, several media reported that Assange is going to launch a range of clothing and accessories in partnership with the Indian manufacturer Franchise India.
On August 13, 2015 the investigation on an incident of suspected unlawful coercion and an incident of sexual molestation againt Assange was dropped. Later that day, the UK Foreign Office tried to shift the blame for the expiration of charges against Assange from Swedish prosecutors to Ecuador.
The statute of limitation on an additional incident of sexual molestation expires on August 18. Yet, the more serious rape allegation remains enforceable until August 17, 2020.
To date, Swedish investigators have not questioned Assange, saying that traveling to London with that purpose is "counterproductive."
For the time being, the whistleblower is still residing in Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
