London [UK]: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s seven years of tenure ended abruptly on Thursday following his arrest at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London. But what will happen to his cat? Where will she go?
CNN has reported that the furry haired animal was Assange’s only companion during his asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
The cat had a significant Internet following of its own. Twitter followers of the ‘Embassy Cat’ shot up to 31,000, while its Instagram account was regularly viewed by nearly 5,000 followers respectively.
Therefore, when the British police stormed the Ecuadoran Embassy on April 11 to detain Assange and charged him with conspiracies and hacking, many started worrying about the fate of the cat.
Would the cat’s asylum end, too? Or was it just beginning? Would someone adopt it, or would it also face extradition to the United States? Would it fall victim to a vast conspiracy? Did it know too much? — are some of the questions raised by the social media followers following Julian’s arrest, Washington Post reported.
“Is Julian Assange’s cat going to be okay though?” one person asked.
“I do hope that someone looks after his cat, who must be very confused about all this,” another said.
A third simply stated: “Am worried about . . . his cat.”
While it’s unclear exactly what happened to Embassy Cat, multiple sources said that the cat is believed to have left the Embassy long ago.
Assange got the cat for himself in 2016 to help pass the time while he was stuck up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been since 2012, CNN reported.
WikiLeaks tweeted footage of Assange’s cat watching his owner being arrested.
We can confirm that Assange's cat is safe. Assange asked his lawyers to rescue him from embassy threats in mid-October. They will be reunited in freedom. #FreeAssange #NoExtradition pic.twitter.com/zSo8RfXXc9
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 13, 2019
According to The Washington Post, Russian news agency Sputnik said that it had contacted the Ecuadoran Embassy about the cat and that a spokesman confirmed that it has been gone for months.
“It is not here since September, I think,” the official told Sputnik.
“It was taken by Mr. Assange’s associates a long ago … It is not here. We are not a pet store, so we do not keep pets here.”
James Ball, an early employee of WikiLeaks who defected after three months at the organisation, took to Twitter saying that the Embassy gave the cat to a shelter “ages ago.”
“So don’t expect feline extradition in the next few hours,” he said.
Assange was arrested after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited the UK to arrest him at the Embassy.
Wikileaks on April 5 had indicated that its founder Assange is likely to be expelled from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has taken asylum since 2012, in the wake of INA papers leak.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]