John McEvoy is an investigative journalist, focusing on UK foreign policy and Latin America and Regular contributor to @declassifieduk

Together with Pablo Navarette he co-authored the “A Lot of Mistakes”: The Guardian and Julian Assange revealing that the Guardian knew their story was not truthful when they published ‘Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy‘.

That Guardian article was instrumentalised to give a legal front to the conspiracy of US and Lenin Moreno’s Ecuadorian government to terminate Julian Assange’s political assylum and arrest.

Now he continues his investigation using FOIA requests focusing on Operation Pelican, the successful plot of various British state departments to terminate the political asylum of Julian Assange and have him arrested inside the Ecuadorian Embassy on 11.04.19. This is what he writes on twitter on the 29/04/22:

“If Julian Assange is extradited to the US, it will be the end of press freedom as we know it. The British public is not being reliably informed about what’s happening. A thread on the web of state secrecy surrounding Julian Assange:

The British Foreign Office can neither confirm nor deny if/how it responded to news that the CIA plotted to kidnap or murder Assange on British soil. Senior British officials knew such a plot existed, and reportedly agreed to “do the shooting”.

Three Foreign Office officials, seven Cabinet Office officials, and eight Home Office officials worked on Operation Pelican – the effort to remove Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. None of the departments can say how much was spent on the operation.

The Home Office told Parliament that it doesn’t hold any details of Operation Pelican, and cannot say which other government departments were involved in it.

Yet in response to my Freedom of Information request, the Home Office used Section 27 (4) of the FOIA, which absolves the government of the requirement to say whether or not it holds information.

It looks like the Home Office lied to Parliament.

In order to get this non-answer from the Home Office, I had to use the Information Commissioner to threaten the Home Office with being held in contempt of court.

The Home Office said the Metropolitan Police Service paid for Operation Pelican.

I asked the Met how much they spent on Operation Pelican on 21 March 2022. They haven’t replied, and are now beyond the 20-day statutory limit to respond.”

References:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/771605/response/1989655/attach/3/FOI%20response%2068315.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/771605/response/1849823/attach/html/3/65001%20PIT.pdf.html

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican_2
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican#incoming-1846470
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican_2#incoming-1989655

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican_3#incoming-1968710
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican_4#incoming-2008893
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican_5#incoming-1983653
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican_6#incoming-2026653
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-03-08/136677/
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_pelican