Category: Spying

On 24th February 2020 Dylan Welch, Suzanne Dredge and Clare Blumer reported

Key points:

• A security company embedded in the Ecuadorian embassy during Julian Assange’s residence is under investigation
• Recordings and other surveillance were allegedly passed on to ‘American intelligence’, according to statements from former workers
• Australian lawyers were among those surveilled in ‘Operation Hotel’

Barrister Geoffrey Robertson shuffles into the entrance to Ecuador’s embassy in London, a camera recording the sound of his shoes echoing on the hard tiles.

It’s just after 7:00pm on January 12, 2018.

The camera rolls as Robertson stops at the front door, unbuttons his overcoat and removes his cap.

Once inside the embassy, other cameras follow him as he’s ushered into a meeting room, where the storied Queen’s Counsel is offered a cup of tea.

After a few minutes, he is greeted by the embassy’s most famous resident, Julian Assange.

The camera continues to roll, recording every word of the confidential legal conversation which follows.

While this may be typical surveillance at a secure diplomatic property, what Robertson did not know was he and a handful of other lawyers, were allegedly being targeted in a remarkable and deeply illegal surveillance operation possibly run at the request of the US Government.

And recordings such as Robertson’s visit are at the heart of concerns about the surveillance: privileged legal conversations between lawyer and client in a diplomatic residence were recorded and, later, accessed from IP addresses in the United States and Ecuador.

Robertson was only one of at least three Australian lawyers and more than two dozen other legal advisers from around the world that were caught up in the surveillance operation.

Long-time WikiLeaks adviser Jennifer Robinson was one of the other Australian lawyers caught in the spying operation.

“It’s important that clients can speak frankly and freely in a confidential space with their lawyers in order to be able to protect themselves and ensure that they have the best possible legal strategy and that the other side does not have advance notice of it,” Robinson said.

Referring to a Spanish allegation that the US Government had advance notice of legal conversations in the embassy, she said: “That is … a huge and a serious breach of [Assange’s] right to a defence and a serious breach of his fair trial rights.”

. . .

The Law Council of Australia told the ABC the alleged surveillance operation was “deeply disturbing”.

“The allegations that Julian Assange’s conversations with his lawyer were being recorded are really serious,” the council’s president, Pauline Wright said.

“If you can’t have that full, frank discussion without fear that that’s being recorded and potentially released to the authorities … it erodes trust in the whole system.

“It goes to the heart of the client lawyer privilege.”

Read whole article in the ABC News

Editors Note: The spying story was breaking in El Pais (Spain) in September 2019. This article raised 500,000 views on its first day and expected to pass 1 million on the second. I also offers insight into the legal ramifications and signals a positive change of attitude to Julian’s predicament in main stream media in Australia.

Editor’s Note: While this is old, it adds depth to our understanding of the spying saga at the Ecuadorian Embassy

On the 20th June 2019 JOSÉ MARÍA IRUJO reported in EL PAÍS

“Do you work for free? This material is worth €3 million. We have to put food on our tables too, you know.”

Thanks to assistance from the police, there is recorded evidence of a meeting at Madrid’s Reina Victoria Hotel in which a Spanish reporter named José Martín Santos and two computer experts attempted to sell WikiLeaks sensitive material in connection with an alleged case of spying against Julian Assange while he was living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

In the recorded conversation, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the alleged extortionists said that there were microphones at the embassy, and that all recorded material involving the WikiLeaks founder was being handed over to the ambassador for review. Martín and one of his associates in Alicante offered WikiLeaks the opportunity to spy on their spies, for a price. Two of the three alleged extortionists have since been arrested and are now being investigated by the courts.

The Madrid meeting took place on April 3 at 7pm. Twenty-four hours earlier, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson and Assange’s lawyer, Aitor Martínez, had met with the three would-be extortionists at the same hotel. And just a few days before that, the latter had cast their net on Twitter by offering to sell personal files about Assange’s seven-year stay at the embassy to the highest bidder.

At their second meeting, however, there were some extra guests that the sellers had not been expecting: several officers from the police Kidnapping and Extortion department, who monitored the entire conversation. Martín, a journalist who had been convicted to three years in prison for fraud in the past, opened the talks by asserting that he and his aides wanted to help the cyber-activist.

Read whole article in EL PAÍS

JOSÉ MARÍA IRUJO writes in El Pais

Spain’s High Court, the Audencia Nacional, is closing in on David Morales, the head of the Spanish security company US Global S. L., and who is under investigation for spying on cyberactivist Julian Assange while he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Three people who worked for the company have testified as protected witnesses before High Court Judge José de la Mata that Morales handed over material collected from the diplomatic headquarters to US intelligence services. The three witnesses say that Morales, a former marine in the Spanish Navy, bragged about the collaboration. “I am a mercenary and I make no bones about it,” he said to one of them.

Under Morales’s express orders, the security team photographed the passports of all of Assange’s visitors

Morales traveled to the US once or twice a month allegedly to hand over the material to “the Americans”

The witnesses said that they were able to prove that the US was accessing the information

Read whole article in El Pais

2019/10/23 Melissa Kitson translated for El Pais

The British justice system is blocking a Spanish judge’s request to question Julian Assange in London as a witness in a case exploring allegations that the Spanish security firm Undercover Global S.L. spied on the WikiLeaks founder while he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

On September 25, Judge José de la Mata sent British authorities an European Investigation Order (EIO) requesting permission to question Assange by videoconference as a witness in the case opened by Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, against the owner of UC Global S. L., David Morales, for alleged offenses involving violations of privacy and client-attorney privileges, as well as misappropriation, bribery, money laundering and criminal possession of weapons

The EIO is a new tool that speeds up cooperation between judges in the EU and circumvents laborious rogatory letters based on instruments of international law. The mechanism came into effect in Spain in 2018. With an EIO, a legal authority from an EU member state can ask a legal authority from another EU country for assistance in obtaining evidence or means of evidence (witness statements, telephone taps, DNA tests and so on). It is an automatic procedure, and requests can only be rejected in exceptional cases.

But the United Kingdom Central Authority (UKCA), the body in charge of processing and responding to EIOs, has provisionally denied De la Mata’s request to question Assange, and asked for more details. Rashid Begun, who signed the response from the UKCA, argued that “these types of interview are only done by the police” in Britain, and that videoconferencing is not available to hear witness statements. He added that the events described by the Spanish judge are “unclear,” and questioned the relationship between the events De la Mata outlined in his request. Begun said there seemed to be no link between the crime contained in the described events and the explanation of how this issue was instigated, or what Spain is specifically investigating. The response also called on De la Mata to clarify the jurisdiction under which Spain claims to be investigating the case.

The Spanish judge did not wait the 30 days given by UKCA to provide his own reply. On October 14, De la Mata sent the British agency a written reply that EL PAÍS has had access to. In the document, the judge expressed his surprise and referred to the “previous cases” in which the UKCA accepted requests for interviews via videoconference. De la Mata also quoted international cooperation treaties that say that the only obstacle in these cases would be if the person being questioned was the accused. “In this case, Julian Assange is a witness, not an accused party,” wrote De la Mata.

In the document, De la Mata also denied that his initial request was unclear: “We have provided a clear context for our case, describing all the events and crimes under investigation.” On the issue of jurisdiction, he replied: “The Spanish judicial system has jurisdiction and is able to hear cases of crimes committed by Spanish citizens outside of the country as long as the event is a crime in the place where it was committed, the victim or the public prosecutor present a criminal complaint, and the suspect has not been sentenced or acquitted in another country.”

De la Mata added that the suspect (David Morales) is Spanish, the victim (Assange) has filed a complaint, and the crimes (unlawful disclosure of secrets and bribery) are crimes in the UK.

In the document, the judge highlighted that both crimes have been committed in Spanish territory because the microphones used to spy on Assange were bought in Spain, and the information obtained was sent and uploaded to servers at UC Global S. L.’s headquarters in Jerez de la Frontera, in the southern Spanish province of Cádiz. De la Mata recognized that these crimes were also “partially” committed in other countries, but said the “requisites outlined in the law to assign jurisdiction to Spanish judicial bodies are fully met.”

Spanish legal sources have not concealed their discontent with the response by UKCA and highlighted that, in the EIOs they process, a country’s jurisdiction is not questioned, nor are hurdles placed for taking witness statements by videoconference.

Read whole article and rest of WikiLeaks threads El Pais

20th May 2019

Material from Julian Asssange’s time in Ecuadorian embassy is said to include two manuscripts

Baltasar Garzón, the international legal coordinator for the defence of Assange and WikiLeaks, said: “It is extremely worrying that Ecuador has proceeded with the search and seizure of property, documents, information and other material belonging to the defence of Julian Assange, which Ecuador arbitrarily confiscated, so that these can be handed over to the the agent of political persecution against him, the United States.

“It is an unprecedented attack on the rights of the defence, freedom of expression and access to information exposing massive human rights abuses and corruption. We call on international protection institutions to intervene to put a stop to this persecution.”

Read full article the Guardian

By now, it has been well-documented how the UK police, prosecuting services, courts and prisons have squandered untold public resources on one individual who had skipped a police bail order seven years ago.  Search a little deeper and we see countless precedentshave been set in the wake of a hunting expedition that is now slowly killing a journalist who exposed the crimes of powerful states.  The abuse of power continues, with the recent attempt to block a Spanish judge from interviewing Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, which clearly demonstrates that the United Kingdom Central Authority (UKCA) is continuing the state’s assault on Assange as he fights extradition to the United States for exposing its war crimes. 

The implications of CIA involvement in spying on Assange were made clear by Assange’s lawyer, Mark Summers, at Assange’s court hearing on 21st October, when he stated:

“The American state has been actively engaged in intruding on privileged discussions between Mr Assange and his lawyer.”

UK Abuse of Assange Continues: Blocking Spanish Investigation, Caving to US Demands

Simon Hunter translates
https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/09/25/inenglish/1569384196_652151.html

which reads

Undercover Global S. L., the Spanish defense and private security companythat was charged with protecting the Ecuadorian embassy in London during the long stay there of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, spied on the cyberactivist for the US intelligence service. That’s according to statements and documents to which EL PAÍS have had access. David Morales, the owner of the company, supposedly handed over audio and video to the CIA of the meetings Assange held with his lawyers and collaborators. Morales is being investigated for this activity by Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional.

The judicial investigation into the director of UC Global S. L. and the activities of his company were ordered by a judge named José de la Mata, and they began weeks after EL PAÍS published videos, audios and reports that show how the company spied on the meetings that the cyberactivist held in the embassy.

The secret probe is the consequence of a criminal complaint filed by Assange himself, in which he accuses Morales and the company of the alleged offenses involving violations of his privacy and the secrecy of his client-attorney privileges, as well as misappropriation, bribery and money laundering. The director of UC Global S. L. has not responded to calls from this newspaper in order to confirm his version of events.

Morales, a former member of the military who is on leave of absence, stated both verbally and in writing to a number of his employees that, despite having been hired by the government of then-Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, he also worked “for the Americans,” to whom he allegedly sent documents, videos and audios of the meetings that the Australian activist held in the embassy. “We are playing in another league. This is the first division,” he told his closest colleagues after attending a security fair in the US city of Las Vegas in 2015 where he supposedly made his first American contacts.

The meeting took place on December 21, 2017 in the meeting room of the diplomatic building and was recorded both on video and audio by cameras installed by Morales’ employees. A small number of people, among whom were the Australian’s lawyers, were aware of the plan. Hours after the meeting, the US ambassador informed the Ecuadorian authorities about the plan, and the next day, December 22, the US put out an international arrest warrant for Assange.

“It is absurd to spy on who has hired you if you are not going to hand that material over to another country,” said a source close to UC Global S. L. This newspaper has had access to the video and the audio of the aforementioned meeting.

Cameras and external access for the US

After the installation of new video cameras at the beginning of December 2017, Morales requested that his technicians install an external streaming access point in the same area so that all of the recordings could be accessed instantly by the United States. To do this, he requested three channels for access: “one for Ecuador, another for us and another for X,” according to mails sent at the time to his colleagues. When one of the technicians asked to contact “the Americans” to explain the way that they should access some of the spying systems installed in the embassy, Morales would always be evasive with his answers.

Morales ordered his workers to install microphones in the embassy’s fire extinguishers and also in the women’s bathroom, where Assange’s lawyers, including the Spaniard Aitor Martínez and his closest collaborators, would meet for fear of being spied on. The cyberactivist’s meetings with his lawyers, Melynda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzón, were also monitored.

The UC Global S. L. team was also ordered by its boss to install stickers that prevented the windows of the rooms that the WikiLeaks founder used from vibrating, allegedly to make it easier for the CIA to record conversations with their laser microphones. They also took a used diaper that from a baby that was on occasions taken to visit the activist in order to determine if the child was his by a close collaborator.

The former military man also planted microphones in a number of decorative elements inside the embassy, which were photographed for their reproduction in Spain. He also wanted to install them in the room used by “the guest,” as Assange was referred to in his reports, but some of his workers, concerned over the illegality of these jobs, warned him that they could be discovered. “The WikiLeaks founder was obsessed with being spied on,” a former employee of the company said.

The spying on Assange increased after Lenin Moreno came to power in Ecuador. At that time, Morales regularly flew to New York and Washington, this newspaper has managed to confirm. Among the UC Global S. L. client list is Sheldon Adelson and his gaming company Las Vegas Sands. For years the Spanish company has been providing security for the business magnate’s yacht when it is in Mediterranean waters. This job is usually carried out personally by Morales himself.

Adelson has a close friendship with US President Donald Trump and is one of the main donors to the Republican Party. Among his security personnel is a former CIA chief. In 2018 an investigation by The New York Times revealed that Julian Assange became a target for CIA spying under the mandate of former director Mike Pompeo. Official sources admitted to the US newspaper that WikiLeaks was being investigated in search of alleged links between its founder and Russian intelligence.