2014-04-17 The raid that almost was

Late on Wednesday evening 15 August 2012, the Metropolitan police surrounded the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. This followed the publication by the Ecuadorean government of the aide memoir from William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, on how the diplomatic status of their London embassy could be revoked.

Observers assumed that the arrival of the police must be the presage to a raid. For those watching the unfolding events, in the end it all turned out to be an anticlimax. Though the outcome could have turned out very differently had it had not been for the interventions of certain cyber warriors - in the UK, Australia and elsewhere - whose quick-wittedness may have ensured that a major international incident was averted.

From Darker Net, this is the inside story of the raid that almost was.

All times quoted in BST.

When 20 or so police, backed by others in vans nearby, attempt to enter a building from two directions, they are clearly not there to protect that building or perform street theatre. It began as a raid, but then aborted. No doubt behind the scenes officials from the embassy and lawyers acting for Assange were making it clear to the police and government officials that the premises were inviolate. But had the police succeeded in penetrating the embassy, the ramifications would have been huge, affecting the status of every embassy of every country around the world.

As for the part played by the citizen journalists that evening, while this was no Tahir Square, the tactics were not that dissimilar, and in shining a cyber spotlight on what the police were attempting to do they made certain the rest of the world were directly involved at every move.

Later that day, an embarrassed British government released a statement denying it had attempted to raid the embassy or that it ever intended to. Also, it became obvious that Hague's memo to the Ecuadorean government had not been supported by his own civil servants or, apparently, sanctioned by the prime minister. The following day the Organisation of American States carried a motion supporting Ecuador in its stance against the British Government. On Sunday, prior to a statement by Julian Assange from the balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy, Snr Baltasar Garzón, the former Spanish judge who is leading Assange's legal team, stated that he will be taking steps to prosecute the British government. (No further details were added.)

More evidence

There is mounting evidence (see below) that the siege of the Ecuador Embassy on the evening of Wednesday 15 August was indeed a raid in progress but that the raid was called off literally at the last moment while the police were inside the building and only minutes away from entering the embassy to arrest Mr Julian Assange. Moreover this evidence (from an insider) supports the assertion that the raid had been organised largely as a result of pressure from the US. As previously stated, that the raid was called off in the way it was may be partly due to the vigilance of a few cyber warriors who were conveying to the world via Livestream video link and tweets exactly what was happening at the embassy, second by second.

Firstly, the aftermath... An extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of American States was called and that meeting condemned the threat made by the British government to raid the premises of the Embassy... Commentators around the world agreed that the threat was a huge mistake and had the raid proceeded then this would have set a precedent with embassies everywhere being subject to similar raids... In the end the British government was forced into a total climbdown and issued a statement to the Government of Ecuador making it clear it would not seek to forcibly enter its premises... The British and Ecuadorian governments have now agreed to resume dialogue on finding a solution to the current impasse... There has been a call for the US to impose economic and other sanctions against Ecuador.

Also, it has since been shown that specialist police units SO10 (Covert Operations, specialising in undercover work) and SO20 (Counterterrorism) are or were involved in the policing of the embassy. SO10 have a history of working closely with the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and it's not inconceivable that some of their operatives are involved in the policing of the Ecuador Embassy too.

New evidence

The new evidence that supports the assertion that a raid had been ordered comes from Craig Murray, the whistleblower who formerly spent 20 years in the British diplomatic service. Mr Murray reports via his blog and via WikiLeaks that on August 15th he had heard from a contact in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that a raid on the embassy was imminent. Mr Murray immediately blogged this.

I arrived in the UK from a trip abroad on 15 August 2012 and was immediately contacted by a very senior official within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who was very concerned. He had knowledge that an attempt by the British authorities to force entry to the Embassy of Ecuador was possibly imminent. I suggested that this must be impossible, and he said that unfortunately it was not. He said that he had been party to formal discussions over a three week period between different British government departments on the legality of such a move. It had concluded that the provisions of the Diplomatic Premises Act of 1987 gave the authorities the domestic power to do this, in spite of the Vienna Convention of 1961. My ex-colleague went on to say that he understood the government intended to act quickly to pre-empt any grant of political asylum to Mr Assange by the government of Ecuador. If there were any formal international recognition of Mr Assange as a political refugee, it might complicate matters. He also said there was tremendous discomfort at this development within the British diplomatic service because of the potential exposure of British embassies and diplomats abroad to similar action. I asked how on earth such an illegal decision could have been reached. My ex-colleague said that political pressure exerted by the administration of the United States of America on Mr William Hague and Mr David Cameron had outweighed the views of British diplomats.

WikiLeaks issued a statement at 04:00 (03:00 UTC). Read it here.

The country that has refused to do the bidding of the empire, Ecuador, is playing a very interesting role here. Their foreign minister was saying this morning that 'we are not a British colony and the days of colonialism, Taormina, are over'. So what we see here is a playing out of the fact that there is complete disrespect for international law. The embassy premises of all countries have been heretofore considered sacrosanct, sacred. And here's the British Foreign Office saying - 'well, we may just forcibly enter'. Unheard of! During the worse days of the Cold War, if someone sought refuge in the US embassy in Moscow or the Soviet embassy in the United States, despite the friction, despite the enmity between those two countries, international law in this case was always honoured. This is unprecedented.
- Ray McGovern