Quito, Ecuador (CNN)An Ecuadorian tribunal connected Monday ruled successful favour of revoking the citizenship of WikiLeaks laminitis Julian Assange, according to a judgement published by the Judicial Branch of Ecuador.
The court's determination nullified Assange's presumption arsenic a naturalized national of Ecuador, which was granted to him successful December 2017 by then-President Lenín Moreno.
Carlos Poveda, Assange's lawyer successful Ecuador, told CNN that helium would entreaty the ruling.
Assange, an Australian, spent astir 7 years holed up successful the Ecuadorian Embassy successful London protected by asylum status, avoiding extradition to Sweden.
He was eventually arrested successful 2019 by London's Metropolitan Police successful transportation with bail-skipping charges and a abstracted extradition warrant from the United States Justice Department connected a complaint of conspiracy to bargain subject secrets, stemming from WikiLeaks' work of classified documents.
His apprehension came aft the Ecuadorian embassy mislaid patience with the WikiLeaks laminitis and revoked his asylum status. At the time, then-Foreign Minister José Valencia and then-Interior Minister María Paula Romo accused Assange of riding scooters astir the cramped embassy hallways, insulting unit and smearing feces connected the walls.
Valencia besides accused Assange of making "false claims" successful his naturalization exertion documents.
The Ecuadorian authorities had besides been annoyed by Assange's vocal enactment for the Catalonian independency movement, which the South American state disquieted could harm its relations with Spain.
Assange is presently successful situation successful the United Kingdom for violating his bail conditions erstwhile helium entered Ecuador's London embassy to elude extradition to Sweden. Swedish prosecutors dropped their probe of intersexual molestation and coercion against him successful 2015 and their probe into rape allegations successful 2020.
In January a British justice rejected Washington's petition to extradite Assange to the US, ruling that specified a determination would beryllium "oppressive" by crushed of his intelligence health.