Copy-Paste Error Reveals Assange Already Facing US Indictment
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Fri, 11/16/2018
Mere hours after the Wall Street Journal reported that the DOJ was preparing to indict Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange, the Washington Post discovered that Assange has already been charged under seal by the Eastern District of Virginia, which has been handling the yearslong probe into Wikileaks’ disclosures of classified government information.
The revelation was apparently the result of a copy-and-paste error in another, unrelated, court filing, according to Seamus Hughes. That case involved Seitu Sulayman Kokayi, a 29-year-old who had been charged with both enticing a 15-year-old girl into sex by sending him pornographic i mages while also having “substantial interest in terrorist acts.”
Assistant US Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer, urging a judge to keep the matter sealed, wrote that “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.” Later in the filing, Dwyer wrote that the charges would “need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested.”
That Kokayi case involved previously classified information and prosecutors were planning to use information obtained under the FISA act. Kokayi was indicted last week and is set to be arraigned on Friday. His case has been sealed since September.
Since the revelation was made in error, no other details about the charges against Assange were revealed.
Dwyer is also assigned to the WikiLeaks case. People familiar with the matter said what Dwyer was disclosing was true, but unintentional.
Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for EDVA, said “the court filing was made in error. That was not the intended name for this filing.”
Assuming he is charged, it’s still not clear whether Assange would wind up in a US courtroom to face trial. He has been living in the Ecuador embassy in London since 2012, fearing he would be arrested if he steps outside. While the relationship between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts had deteriorated significantly this year – he sued the government in an Ecuadorian court after the embassy cut off his Internet access and took other punitive measures reportedly in response to his slovenly habits and penchant for food-mooching. But he lost the suit, and is now appealing.
The Rest…HERE
