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Bini, who has reportedly lived in Ecuador for “several years,” is the author and co-author of several computer programming books about Ruby on Rails. Bini had visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London on “several” occasions, at least according to Romo.

“We are not going to allow Ecuador to become a hacking center,” Romo said. “And we cannot allow illegal activities to take place in the country, either to harm Ecuadoran citizens or those from other countries or any government.”

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Assange is facing extradition to the United States and has a hearing in London in roughly four weeks. But it’s not clear yet whether Bini will be charged with anything. All we know for sure is that the President Donald Trump has soured on WikiLeaks.

By some counts, President Trump has praised WikiLeaks at least 141 times. But Trump is pretending that he doesn’t know what WikiLeaks is anymore.

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“I know nothing about WikiLeaks,” Trump said in the White House yesterday. “It’s not my thing.”

[BBC]

Update, 2:25pm: The National Police of Ecuador just tweeted photos that presumably show Bini, though his face has been obscured. The images also show the “evidence” they’ve obtained, which appears to be some computers, hard drives, books, and other things that you’d expect anyone who works in software to have:

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Formal charges against Bini still haven’t been made, as far as we can tell. It’s also still unclear if he’s had any access to a lawyer or consular assistance as a citizen of Sweden.