Trial of Assange friend starts in Ecuador

The trial of Swedish programmer and internet activist Ola Bini, a friend of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who is accused of hacking the computer systems of Ecuador's public telecommunications company CNT, has kicked off in Quito.

"After almost three years (and) more than 100 violations of Ola's rights, and thanks to the support of more than 100 organisations at the national and international level, including the United Nations, the Inter-American human rights system... we finally have the opportunity to appear before a court," the defendant's lawyer Carlos Soria said.

Prior to entering the courthouse in Ecuador's capital, the lawyer said his client merely wants justice to be served.

In October, the CNT requested that the judicial proceedings be postponed.

Soria said the delays in the process have been unnecessary but expressed confidence on Wednesday that the judges will find Bini innocent, adding that "the only thing he's done is work in the country".

Bini was arrested on April 11, 2019, in Quito while he was preparing to board a flight to Tokyo.

He was detained just hours after Ecuador's government, then-headed by president Lenin Moreno, abruptly ended Assange's diplomatic asylum at its embassy in London.

"We've never denied (a friendship existed between Bini and Assange)," Soria said.

"If that's a crime, the Attorney General's Office is crazy."

The Swede has been under investigation since 2019 for allegedly also trying to gain unauthorised access to the computer systems of state oil company Petroecuador and the former National Intelligence Secretariat.

Bini was initially held in preventive detention for 70 days before being released although he still is barred from leaving the country, has had his bank accounts frozen and is required to report to the AG's office on a weekly basis.

Then-interior minister Maria Paula Romo said at the time of the suspect's arrest that he had sought to destabilise the government by "collaborating" with WikiLeaks and Assange, who was granted asylum in August 2012 by then-Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa but lost that protection after Moreno took office and proceeded to reverse virtually all of his former mentor's initiatives and programs.