‘Very professional’ masked intruders break into office of head of WikiLeaks’ legal team
Cassandra Fairbanks
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At least three masked intruders broke into the Madrid office of Baltasar Garzón, the head of WikiLeaks’ legal team, during the early hours of Monday morning — in what police are calling a “very professional” operation.
Tweeting about the incident on Tuesday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote that the security cameras had been taped over and no money was stolen during the break in.
Masked intruders have broken into the legal office of Baltasar Garzón, head of @wikileaks legal team, in Madrid. No money taken. Security cameras taped over. "Very professional" operation, say police. https://t.co/YyXvovQ03J
— Defend Assange Campaign (@DefendAssange) December 19, 2017
According to a report from El Pais, the police are waiting for technicians to determine if copies of files have been made from the computers.
Garzón formerly served on Spain’s central criminal court and and was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 5 — the team that investigates the most serious crimes, such as terrorism.
Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 19, 2012, where he applied and was granted political asylum. Since that time, the building has been encircled by police waiting on standby to arrest him. Many fear that should he be arrested in London, he would be extradited to the United States where he would face harsh penalties for practicing journalism.
In 2016, after 16 months of investigation, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) concluded that Julian Assange is the victim of arbitrary detention. Not only did the group, made up of lawyers and human rights professionals, release an opinion that Assange should be released, they reported that he should be compensated by the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom for “deprivation of liberty.”
During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, she infamously asked the State Department, “can’t we just drone this guy?”
Hillary Clinton on Assange "Can't we just drone this guy" — report https://t.co/S7tPrl2QCZ pic.twitter.com/qy2EQBa48y
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 3, 2016
Assange has been enemy number one as far as Democrats are concerned ever since his publication of a trove of emails from the Democratic National Committee which revealed the party had been working against Senator Bernie Sanders during the primaries.
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