– We won! I have been declared innocent by a unanimous court, sign Swedish activist Ola Bini Twitter.

Bini was arrested and imprisoned in Ecuador in April 2019. He is an acquaintance of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and the arrest took place just hours after Ecuador withdrew Assange’s asylum in country’s embassy in London, writes NTB.

Serious charges

According to the Swedish online newspaper Omni he was accused of breaking into the computer systems of the public telecommunications company CNT with the aim of destabilizing the government and pressuring the then president, Lenín Moreno. Moreno reportedly said Bini was part of a spy center.

Bini was in prison from April to June 2019 and so far he has not been allowed to leave Ecuador. The travel ban applies for three more days, as the other party has three days to appeal the sentence, according to the Swede the Ekot information program. The trial against him was postponed due to the pandemic, writes Omni. Negotiations began on December 3, 2020, and the trial began on January 19, 2022. There were several retrials before the final trial was held on January 31, 2023.

[ Julian Assange utnevnt til æresmedlem i Norsk PEN ]

Eleven o’clock

NTB refers to an audio message in which Bini says the trial against him ended at half past eight in the evening after lasting eleven hours on Tuesday.

– It’s been a long day. I explained myself for five hours and then spoke mainly about the rights violations that I believe I have been exposed to, Bini said in the message that was recorded before it became clear that he would be acquitted.

The Swedish newspaper online Omni writes that Bini himself had low expectations before the judges acquitted him.

– It’s harder mentally to hope that something will go well, only to be disappointed, so I’d rather have no hope at all, Bini told the newspaper.

All of this only lasted a few hours. Bini tells the newspaper he’s surprised it happened so quickly.

– Given the amount of material we’ve seen and heard, it’s hard to understand how this is even possible, he says.

[ Assanges kone: – Dette må bare få en slutt. Julian kjemper for sitt liv ]

[ Amnesty: Navalnyj utsatt for forferdelige forhold i fengsel ]

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