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A finding by a UN panel in 2016 that Assange’s continued confinement in the embassy amounted to “arbitrary detention” was dismissed by the UK Foreign Office, which maintained that his presence there is voluntary.

Both Manafort and Assange emphatically denied the report after it was published.

It was mid-June 2012, and as Britain expectantly awaited the opening of the Olympics just over a month later, the WikiLeaks publisher had exhausted every legal avenue in his attempts to avoid extradition to Sweden, where two women had made allegations of rape and sexual assault during a visit by Assange to Stockholm in 2010.

Photograph: EPA
With the Swedes determined to extradite him, however, and a US grand jury hearing into WikiLeaks already underway, the Australian resolved to stay put.

Julian Assange: key dates in the WikiLeaks founder's case
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In February 2017 the then attorney general Jeff Sessions said arresting Assange was a priority, while a mistake in a document filed last November suggested criminal charges had been secretly filed against him.

The country’s then president, the leftwinger Rafael Correa, was sympathetic to his plight and he was granted asylum two months later.

Julian Assange: key dates in the WikiLeaks founder's case
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In February 2017 the then attorney general Jeff Sessions said arresting Assange was a priority, while a mistake in a document filed last November suggested criminal charges had been secretly filed against him.

In January 2018 it emerged that the country had made Assange an Ecuadorian citizen in a bid to resolve the impasse (its request to have him recognised as a diplomat was dismissed by the UK).

The WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning was already in custody on espionage charges (she would be sentenced to 35 years in prison, later commuted by President Obama.

It was mid-June 2012, and as Britain expectantly awaited the opening of the Olympics just over a month later, the WikiLeaks publisher had exhausted every legal avenue in his attempts to avoid extradition to Sweden, where two women had made allegations of rape and sexual assault during a visit by Assange to Stockholm in 2010.

When Julian Assange, disguised as a motorcycle courier, first walked up the steps of Ecuador’s small embassy behind Harrods in central London and asked for asylum, few people – including, surely, Assange himself – can have imagined it would be almost seven years before he next exited the front door.

More significantly for the Australian’s legal position, after years of torturous wrangling, his Swedish problem effectively went away, thanks simply to the passage of time.

When Julian Assange, disguised as a motorcycle courier, first walked up the steps of Ecuador’s small embassy behind Harrods in central London and asked for asylum, few people – including, surely, Assange himself – can have imagined it would be almost seven years before he next exited the front door.

An office was repurposed as a bedroom and workspace, but he was forced, initially at least, to sleep on a mattress on the floor, sharing a bathroom and with access only to a tiny basic kitchen.

WikiLeaks has continued to publish, exposing details of US tactics in trade negotiations, of the country’s surveillance of other governments, and of CIA hacking methods, among other revelations.

Assange had tweeted in support of the Catalan independence movement, causing a rift between Quito and Madrid, and challenged the UK’s accusation that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of a Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.