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Julian Assange: Watch the moment Wikileaks founder arrested at Ecuadorian embassy

Dramatic video shows pale and dishevelled 47-year-old dragged from building by seven police officers

Chris Baynes
Friday 20 December 2019 12:03 GMT
(Ruptly)

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Dramatic footage of Julian Assange’s arrest shows the Wikileaks founder being forcibly removed from Ecuadorian embassy by British police.

Pallid and with an unkempt white beard, Mr Assange cuts a very different figure from the hacker who took refuge in the Knightsbridge consulate six years and 10 months earlier.

The video shows the handcuffed 47-year-old struggling and shouting as seven plain-clothed officers haul him off the ground and down steps at the entrance of the building and into a waiting police van.

Clutching a copy of Gore Vidal’s book History of The National Security State, he is heard shouting: “The UK has no sovereignty. The UK must resist this attempt by the Trump administration.”

A witness said: "He was screaming. He was struggling, I think he felt a bit weak. He was surrounded by police."

The footage was captured by Ruptly, a Berlin-based subsidiary of Kremlin-funded Russian news outlet RT, which had been staking out the embassy 24 hours a day since reports suggested Mr Assange could soon be expelled by Ecuador.

Mr Assange was arrested by Metropolitan Police officers after the Ecuadorian government withdrew his asylum.

He faces extradition to the US after being further arrested on behalf of American authorities at a central London police station on Thursday.

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