Hot: British police arrest WikiLeaks owner

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

British police said today they had arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Ecuador revoked his asylum. Assange was arrested on charges of failing to appear in court and taken to a central London police station.

British police said they had been invited to the embassy in London by the Ecuadorian ambassador to arrest Assange after the country revoked asylum for the WikiLeaks founder. Assange will be held in police custody until he appears at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

"Ecuador's illegal termination of Assange's political asylum is a violation of international law," WikiLeaks' representative posted on Twitter after British police released the information.

The US accuses WikiLeaks, which Assange has run since 2010, of collecting and publishing classified documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and many diplomatic secrets, damaging the image of the US. Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid arrest by British police in 2012 and was later granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government.

Last year, media reported that Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno was likely to reach an agreement with British authorities to not allow Assange to remain in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange could face at least a year in prison for failing to comply with an arrest warrant issued by the UK in 2012.

British authorities also cannot guarantee that Assange will not be extradited to the US, where he faces prison for publishing secret documents.

Huyen Le