Washington(ANN)-Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno sold off WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to the United States after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided billions of dollars of loan to the Latin American country, according to former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Dr. Paul, the founder of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, made the remarks on Monday while discussing the violent arrest of Assange by UK Metropolitan Police last week at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after the Moreno government cancelled his asylum.
The Australian whistleblower was arrested on behalf of the US on Thursday at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he had been granted asylum since 2012.
Assange, 47, is wanted by the US government for publishing classified documents related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that were leaked by American whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Assange spent seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy before his arrest.
“We have two foreign policies. We tell people what to do. And if they do it, we’re with them. We give them a lot of money. If they don’t, they’re in big trouble, they allow themselves to be bombed; we invade them, and there will be a coup,” Dr. Paul said.
“We find that Moreno, the president of Ecuador, did not do badly. He’s been playing footsies with us, and gaining some money and he delivered, you know, after he became president – it’s shame because the previous president wouldn’t allow us or at least would ensure that Assange could be ‘protected’ to some degree,” he stated.
“But he (Moreno) evidently is out form and now of course he has delivered him. And this might not be all of that. This probably is official tool of ours to provide these countries,” he noted.
“The IMF has already delivered $4.2 billion to [Ecuador], and there’s another six billion dollars in the pipeline for that,” he said.
Moreno on Sunday accused Assange of trying to use Ecuador’s embassy in London as a “center for spying,” and said that the decision to strip the whistleblower of his political asylum followed “violations” of that status.
In an interview with The Guardian, Moreno defended his decision on the Assange case.
“It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadoran Embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states,” the president said.