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Julian Assange filmed falling off skateboard in newly released video from Ecuadorian embassy

Julian Assange filmed falling off skateboard in newly released video from Ecuadorian embassy

Footage has emerged of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange skateboarding in the Ecuadorian embassy.

In a video obtained by Spanish publication El Pais, Assange wears a vest and shorts, and, barefoot, he jumps on the board and rides it shakily in his room at the embassy.

Assange was arrested and dragged out of the embassy in London on Thursday after the South American nation revoked his political asylum.

There was a shift in the way the Ecuadorian government handled Assage after president Lenin Moreno took office in 2017; he requested that Assange limit his online political presence, to stop riding his skateboard in the embassy’s halls, and to clean up after his cat.

Interior minister Maria Paula Romo later revealed that Assange’s mental and physical state had deteriorated during his seven-year stay at the embassy, and he reportedly exhibited increasingly anti-social behaviour.

Maria said he had been “allowed to do things like put faeces on the walls of the embassy and other behaviours of that nature”.

Foreign minister Jose Valencia, commenting on Assange’s presence in the embassy, told Ecuador’s national assembly:

It’s strange that Mr Assange has insisted on being the victim.

Mr Valencia also told the congress that embassy cleaning staff described “improper hygienic conduct” throughout Assange’s stay, adding that a lawyer representing Assange had attributed the issue to “stomach problems”.

The 47-year-old was taken to Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where he was found guilty of breaching bail conditions, and US officials charged him with conspiracy. They are expected to fight to have him extradited to the US.

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