Julian Assange spying case: Judge suggests CIA may have received illicitly recorded conversations

Proving that US intelligence services learned about the WikiLeaks founder’s defense strategy by spying on his lawyers could annul the extradition request, say legal sources

José María Irujo Madrid – Jun 09, 2022 – 06:55 EDT

The conversations between Julian Assange and his lawyers illicitly recorded by the Spanish security company UC Global at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder took refuge for years, could have been delivered to agents of the US secret services, according to Santiago Pedraz, the judge at Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, in charge of the espionage case.

Delivery to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or to US authorities of details about the defense strategy of the cyberactivist, whom the US wants to have extradited from the UK, is reflected in a court order issued by Pedraz to which EL PAÍS has had access. In this document, which deals with procedural issues, the judge explains to the British authorities why he needs to take witness testimony from the British lawyers and Assange’s doctors who were spied on at the embassy. These individuals include Gareth Peirce, 82, the famous British lawyer who was played by actress Emma Thompson in the 1993 movie In the Name of the Father.