Ecuador says Julian Assange violated asylum terms in London …

In this file photo taken on May 19, 2017, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London. - A heroic campaigner for openness, or an enemy of the U.S. state trying to avoid justice: after a decade in the limelight, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains an evasive and polarizing figure. ((Photo: Justin Tallis, AFP/Getty Images)

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of repeatedly violating the conditions of his seven years of asylum in Ecuador's embassy in Britain.

In a speech to the Ecuadorian Broadcasting Association on Tuesday, Moreno accused the whistleblowing organizationof intercepting phone calls and private conversations and also complained about photos of my bedroom, what I eat, and how my wife and daughters and friends dance.

Mr. Assange has violated the agreement we reached with him and his legal counsel too many times, Moreno said.It is not that he cannot speak and express himself freely, but he cannot lie, nor much less hack private accounts or phones.

This handout photo released by the Ecuadorean Presidency press office shows Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno speaking during an interview with local radio journalists on Wikileaks founder Julien Assange in Guayaquil, Ecuador on April 2, 2019.(Photo: Andres Reinoso, Ecuadorian presidency, AFP/Getty Images)

While Moreno did not explicitly blame Assange for the hacked calls and provided no evidence, his remarksreflected ongoing tension between Assange and Ecuadoran officials.

The Ecuadorean government, however, has said it believes the WikiLeaksorganization shared the photos that depict a lavish lifestyle anddate back several years, to when Moreno and his family lived in Geneva,The Guardian reports.

WikiLeaks, in a statement, called Morenos charges completely bogus, saying it reported onaccusations of corruption against the president only after Ecuadors legislature investigated the issue.

If President Moreno wants to illegally terminate a refugee publishers asylum to cover up an offshore corruption scandal, history will not be kind, WikiLeaks said in a statement.

Assange, 47,took refuge in the embassy in London 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning aboutrape allegations. Although the Swedishinvestigation was dropped last year,Assange still faces charges in Britain for jumping bail.

Assange, an Australian national, chose to remain in the embassy out of fear that the United States would immediately seek his arrest and extradition over the leaking of classified documents to WikiLeaks by then-U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning.

Assange told The Telegraph in 2013 that he lives in a small office room converted into living quarters, equipped with a bed, telephone, sun lamp, computer, shower, treadmill and a small kitchenette.

The Ecuadoran authorities last year, for the second time, cut off Assange's access to the internet because of concerns that he was damaging the country'sties toBritain and other European nations, purportedly by criticizingSpain's handling of its separatist movement.

It alsorequiredAssangeto pay his medical bills and clean up after his pet cat.

Assange, who was granted Ecuadorian citizenship last year inan apparent effort to designate him a diplomat and allow him to go to Russia, sued Ecuador for violatinghis rights as an Ecuadorian.

He pressed his case in local andinternational tribunals on human-rights ground, but both ruled against him.

The leftist Ecuadorian government that offered asylum to Assange had been embroiled in a diplomatic row with the U.S. involving a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable.

U.S. ambassador to Ecuador Heather Hodges was expelled after WikiLeaks leaked the document that allegedwidespread corruption within the Ecuadorian police force, the BBC reported.

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