Amal Clooney Told Julian Assange How to Avoid Being Extradited to Sweden to Face Rape Charges

Content warning: This story mentions allegations of rape.

It looks like Julian Assange is finally going to be a partially free man as the Associated Press reported he was brokering a plea deal with the United States. On June 25, 2024, he hopped on a plane in Bangkok and headed for the island of Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific, in order to "resolve the legal case over the publication of a trove of classified documents."

His legal troubles began in July 2010 when he released more than 91,000 documents that were mostly secret military reports about the Afghanistan war, per Al Jazeera. He also faced allegations of rape that stemmed from an August 2010 incident in Sweden. One of the many attorneys who defended Assange regarding the sexual assault claims was human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who gave him some very interesting advice. What she told him to do doesn't feel human, or right.

In July 2019, the Daily Mail obtained a 29-page leaked document drawn up by Clooney in September 2013. In it, she explained how Assange could avoid being extradited to Sweden from the United Kingdom. At the time, he was also facing charges of treason in the United States and was afraid that being extradited to Sweden would ultimately forge a path back to America.

It was suggested by Clooney that Assange, who is an Australian citizen, might be able to become Ecuador's technology minister. This could be achieved by claiming he "rendered important services to Ecuador as an 'award-winning communications professional internationally known for his struggle for press freedom and human rights in general and [exposing] abuses of power in certain countries,'" per the document. Living in the Ecuadorian embassy would give Assange immunity from being extradited.

By the way, that's not all he would receive. Evidently this would also give Assange a tax exempt status. Amal also said he could snag himself an Ecuador passport by marrying an Ecuadorian woman. While he never entered the embassy in an official capacity, Assange was granted asylum in 2012 by then President Rafael Correa who supported Wikileaks, reported the BBC.

While hiding out at the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange treated it almost like a vacation. He had friends over, which included but was not limited to Lady Gaga and Pamela Anderson, and would often address people from a small balcony as if he was a tiny dictator. Things changed in 2017 when President Lenín Moreno took office.

Moreno immediately handed down rules to Assange that demanded he pay for his time on the internet as well as food, laundry, and taking care of his cat. People began speculating that Assange's time at the embassy was drawing to a close. Things finally came to a head when on April 11, 2019, Moreno tweeted a video accusing Assange of "discourteous and aggressive behaviour" and said he violated "international conventions and daily-life protocols."

Later, Foreign Minister José Valencia told Congress that Assange was accusing mission workers of being U.S. spies while using an unregistered cell phone. Perhaps the most upsetting information to come out of his stay at the embassy was Assange's lack of hygiene. Apparently he went weeks without a shower and spread feces on the walls of the embassy, which is the true Wikileak of this story.