U.S. stonewalls probe into security firm that allegedly spied on Assange for CIA, says Spanish judge

documenting how the CIA, under its then-director Mike Pompeo, launched in 2017 a covert operation to cripple WikiLeaks that included ultimately aborted plans to abduct Assange in a so-called “snatch operation.” CIA officials, incensed by WikiLeaks’ publication of sensitive agency hacking documents, even discussed — but never implemented — a plot to assassinate Assange, according to former U.S. intelligence officials knowledgeable about the CIA’s operation.

At that point, three employees of UC Global came forward to Spanish police to tell a strange but intriguing story: They had been directed by the company’s owner, David Morales, a former Spanish special forces officer, to secretly record Assange’s conversations by installing hidden microphones concealed in fire extinguishers in the embassy. They also asserted they had covertly downloaded data from the cellphones of his visitors, and swiped copies of Assange’s written notes.

One of the former employees said in an interview with Yahoo News here that the purpose of the surveillance was made clear when Morales gathered his small workforce together after a trip to the United States, where he attended a Las Vegas gun show. UC Global had been contracted to provide security at the embassy by SENAIN, the Ecuadorian intelligence service.

In an email exchange with Yahoo News, Morales adamantly denied the allegations by the whistleblowers, saying the claims that he discussed the kidnapping or poisoning of Assange were “lies” and that he never told his employees the surveillance of the WikiLeaks founder was on behalf of U.S. intelligence. “I never said that,” he said, adding that the allegations by three of his employees were “sensationalist” conspiracy theories “like a spy film script.

As the employees told it, Morales took direction from one of the Las Vegas Sands’ senior security officials, Zohar Lahav, an Israeli American who previously worked as a security officer at the Israeli Consulate in Miami. And the purpose, they allege, was to funnel surveillance videos — and other information that UC Global had scooped up about Assange — to the CIA through Las Vegas Sands.

On June 19, 2020, José de la Mata Amaya, the original judge in charge of the case, sent the first Spanish request for assistance to the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, asserting that investigations by Spanish police showed “there is a serious probability of the existence of offenses that could constitute an offence against privacy and against client/attorney confidentiality,” he wrote, citing provisions of the Spanish criminal code, according to a copy of the request...

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