Spanish Firm Spied on Julian Assange in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy for CIA
By: Herbert Dyer
Tags: Politics, Julian Assange, Surveillance, Ecuador, CIA

The Information Clearing House is reporting that a private Spanish security firm allegedly spied on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange throughout his seven-year stay at London’s Ecuadorian Embassy.

The firm had been contracted to provide security for the embassy, and according to the London paper El Pais, Undercover Global Ltd. handed over both audio and video surveillance of Assange to the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

While living in the embassy, Assange himself had regularly complained that he was being watched.

Because of El Pais’ investigation and reportage, Spain’s National Court has opened an investigation into the matter.

Undercover Global owner David Morales allegedly directed the surveillance and was personally responsible for making a deal with the CIA for the tapes. He had also directed his employees to keep mum about any connection he and his firm had with the CIA.

Real Time Streaming Surveillance

Undercover Global placed microphones throughout Assange’s living quarters — in everything from light fixtures to embassy fire extinguishers.

They also bugged the embassy’s female bathrooms, where Assange’s lawyers would meet because they feared that conference rooms were wired.

A streaming system was also allegedly in place, which allowed US officials to directly access Assange’s meetings in real time.

It was in one of those meetings when a plot between the Wikileaks founder and Ecuador’s secret service chief, Rommy Vallejo, was hatched to smuggle Assange out of the embassy and then out of England using a diplomatic passport.

El Pais said that Assange’s bedroom was not bugged, not out of any sense of protection for his privacy, but because employees of the firm felt that their devices could be more easily uncovered there.

No specific or exact timeline for the surveillance was offered by the El Pais. It was noted, however, that the spying activity increased two years after current Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno took office.

“There is a criminal case under investigation at the National Court but it is being conducted in secret … and we cannot say anything about what is being investigated beyond what has been leaked” Assange’s lawyer Aitor Martinez told AFP news agency.

Martinez said the leak “probably came from employees at the firm.”

Undercover Global and its owner have refused to comment about these allegations.

Julian Assange fled into the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012. He said he was attempting to avoid a politically motivated extradition order from Sweden following a sexual assault accusation there. As stated, he lived in the embassy for seven years.

In April, after a change in the Ecuadorian government policy (an attempt to restore “good” relations with the US), tensions rose between Assange and Moreno. The Wikileaks founder was finally, forcibly, kicked out of the residence and promptly arrested by UK authorities.

He was removed amid reports that he had trashed his living space as well as the entire embassy; that he had basically “lost his mind,” spreading feces on walls, refusing to clean up after his pets, fist-fighting with embassy staffers, etc. The Information Clearing House report denies and debunks these allegations, calling them excuses and rationalizations for Assange’s very public and near-brutal eviction from the Ecuadoran premises.

Julian Assange remains in jail in London under what has been described as tortuous circumstances, awaiting extradition to either the US or Sweden — or both.