It looks like Julian Assange has been charged by United States authorities. What he’s going to be indicted for remains to be seen.
The upcoming indictment was reportedly supposed to be sealed, but due to some bizarre error, Assange’s name was mentioned in another unrelated case. This other court case, which was filed in Virginia, refers to existing criminal charges against him. According to a WikiLeaks tweet, this was a “cut-and-paste error.”
The court case Assange’s name pops up in says the case needs to be sealed “until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.” Yet because of this mistake, the cat seems to be out of the bag.
For years, Assange has been trapped in Ecuador’s embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden over charges of sexual assault. He has also been wanted in the U.S. for publishing classified cables and other documents. It seems Robert Mueller has also been investigating WikiLeaks for publishing hacked emails in 2016 from both Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
The Justice Department for the eastern district of Virginia would not comment to the Guardian about Assange’s indictment. The spokesperson did say: “The court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.”
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