Summary British police have arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at Ecuador's embassy in London.
LONDON (AFP) - Here are the key dates in the life of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who was arrested by British police on April 11:
- 1971: He is born July 3 in Townsville, Australia. During his nomadic childhood and youth, he attends 37 schools.
- 1990s: Becomes a computer programmer and software developer, with a talent for hacking.
- 2003-2006: Studies physics and mathematics at the University of Melbourne.
- 2006: Sets up wikileaks.org to enable whistleblowers to post sensitive documents on the internet without being traced.
- 2010: Swedish prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for Assange over allegations of rape and sexual assault involving two women. He denies the accusations.
- 2010: WikiLeaks publishes classified military documents on American diplomacy and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, making Assange a pariah in the United States.
- 2012: To escape extradition from Britain, he requests political asylum from Ecuador and takes refuge at its embassy in London. Asylum is granted weeks later.
- 2016: WikiLeaks publishes 20,000 hacked emails from the US election campaign team of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
- 2017: Swedish prosecutors drop their rape probe. The same year, Assange becomes an Ecuadoran citizen.
- 2018: WikiLeaks’ attorney describes his living conditions in the embassy as "inhuman".
- 2019 Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno says Assange has violated the conditions of his asylum. British police arrest Assange, saying his asylum had been withdrawn.
