Assange gives evidence in Spanish case
against security contractor
By Thomas Scripps
December 22, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" - WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange was brought from Belmarsh Prison
yesterday to appear in person at Westminster Magistrates
Court and provide video-link witness testimony in the
Spanish prosecution of David Morales, the founder of
security firm UC Global. Morales, a former Spanish
military officer, is accused of spying on Assange in the
Ecuadorian embassy and was charged in October with
privacy violation, bribery and money laundering.
The hearing was held in private session. No members
of the media or the public were allowed inside the
courtroom to see or hear Assange, on the remarkable
grounds that the Spanish prosecution of UC Global
involves “matters of national security.” His appearance
took place 24 hours after he appeared via video-link in
a case management hearing ahead of the scheduled
February 24 trial on the application by the United
States to extradite him. Assange has been charged with
17 counts of espionage and is threatened with life
imprisonment over his role in WikiLeaks’ publication of
the documents leaked by whistleblower Chelsea Manning
which exposed US war crimes and diplomatic intrigues.
The Morales case has major implications for the US
extradition attempt. UC Global was contracted by the
Ecuadorian government to provide security for its
embassy in London, where Assange sought and was granted
political asylum in June 2012. Instead of protecting
Assange, Morales’s company is known to have illegally
monitored and recorded every aspect of his personal life
from 2015 until March 2018. Investigations published by
Spanish newspaper El Pais and Italian newspaper
La Repubblica have uncovered evidence that
leaves little doubt the surveillance was carried out on
behalf of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
