Ecuador's government acknowledged on Tuesday that it had "temporarily restricted" WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's internet access at its embassy in London after the whistleblowing site published documents from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The announcement confirmed WikiLeaks' claim that Ecuador was behind the cut-off, but disputed its assertion that the decision was made because of U.S. pressure. On Monday, the group tweeted: "We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 1 p.m. In followup messages posted Tuesday, the group claimed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had personally intervened to ask Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton. Over the weekend, WikiLeaks released three lines of code it described as "pre-commitments," labelling them "John Kerry," "Ecuador," and "FCO" — an apparent reference to Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Source: CBC News October 19, 2016 00:00 UTC