Assange says Clinton pressured Ecuador to suspend his internet service

Julian Assange says it was Hillary Clinton herself who forced Ecuador to pull the plug on the Wikileaks founder’s internet account.

Hillary Clinton with Rafael Correa in a 2010.

On October 18, the Ecuadorian embassy in London announced it had shut off Assange’s Internet access due to WikiLeaks publishing materials that could affect the U.S. presidential election. The Ecuadorian officials explained the move as part of the country’s non-interference in external elections policy.

“We whipped up a crazed hornet’s nest atmosphere in the Hillary Clinton camp and all the organizations that are backing her,” Assange was quoted as saying by the UK newspaper Daily Express.

“The request to stop my internet service came from her, or her organization, to the Ecuadorian government,” he added.

The paper reported that Assange made a telephone call to the Conferencia Internacional de Software Libre in Argentina on Wednesday, though the video from the conference was released just on Thursday. The call ceased the speculation over Assange’s possible death or arrest, heated by his two-week period of silence. On October 23,

Wikileaks released a statement, saying Assange had not published any documents related to the U.S. election campaign from the Embassy of Ecuador. Assange has been residing in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012 to not be extradited to Sweden, where he was accused of rape after WikiLeaks begun to release documents in its possession.

WikiLeaks has continued to released hacked emails from the Clinton campaign since the suspension of Assange’s internet service.