The UC Global manager responds to Julian Assange's lawsuit

(CNN Spanish) - Between the hustle and bustle of hundreds of protesters marching in the center of Madrid that day and the desperate walk of tourists looking to dodge the protest, David Morales, owner manager of the Spanish security company suddenly appears in a taxi UC Global. Morales arrived in the city to talk with CNN about the lawsuit brought against him by Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. It would be his first interview for an international media.

Dressed in a blue jacket, light shirt and dark boots, Morales entered the improvised production hall by CNN in a hotel, determined to tell his version of the story. Once there, he shook hands, but didn't ask questions. He also didn't ask for something to drink. He just sat in the chair waiting for the dialogue. In the street, the protests continued with shouts and banners. The noise seeped through the windows, but Morales seemed unperturbed. When the conversation began, he listened attentively. Among his first responses, he pointed out one sharp: "I don't work for the CIA."

"We have been enduring these things for some time and we have tried to stay out of the way, but obviously with this scenario that has been presented, I have decided to give statements to clarify these issues, as far as possible," he added.

With these phrases, the businessman defends himself from an unprecedented legal battle that takes place at the National Court of Spain, where Assange, currently imprisoned in the United Kingdom for violating the conditions of his probation in that country, accuses him of crimes against the privacy and secrecy of communications between lawyer and client, as well as bribery and money laundering for the alleged recording, without his consent, of meetings that Assange held with lawyers, journalists, Ecuadorian politicians and even with his doctors. This would have happened between 2015 and mid-2018, at which time UC Global was in charge of the security of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the founder of WikiLeaks remained asylum for almost seven years. The information collected, Assange denounces, would have been delivered or sold by Morales to the CIA. Morales denies having done such a thing.

• Assange meeting in the kitchen with Aitor Jiménez and others - January 12, 2018

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“We were hired by Senain [the former Secretary of Intelligence of Ecuador], to provide security to the embassy. Installing cameras or preparing entry records or reports are things that we were asked for. Everything was done under the contract and… we arrived at the headquarters because the situation was chaotic, ”Morales said.

Following this lawsuit, Morales told CNN that he was detained between September 17 and 20 of this year. In those days there were several raids in the main offices of UC Global in Cádiz, in southern Spain, where documents, computers and technical equipment were seized. The retired Spanish military also said that by court order he must appear twice a week before a court for the duration of the investigation, which has a ban on leaving the country, his passport was withdrawn and his bank accounts were also seized.

Morales believes that the trial against him is part of a strategy to victimize Assange, who faces an extradition process to the US, where they want to judge him for 18 charges related to the disclosure of classified information and state secrets on security Internal of this country. Assange's defense alleges that, following the exposure of classified documents of the US Government, the founder of WikiLeaks lost any guarantee of facing a fair trial in this country.

"From what can be seen in the recordings published in the media, it is credited that the conversations were actually recorded and that, along with much more material from the asylum [Assange], they would have been sent to the US," said Aitor Jiménez, one of Assange’s lawyers leading the lawsuit against Morales. Therefore, Jiménez adds, the United Kingdom must deny the extradition of Assange "because there is no legal scenario with minimum guarantees because Mr. Assange's right to defend himself has been radically violated." The US Department of Justice Did not respond to our requests for comment.

David Morales

Morales adds that in the case against him they could also be involved former employees of the company cited in the lawsuit. “We currently have some conflicts that are being legally resolved, labor disputes with former employees and I believe that in some way the origin could be there. I do not know because right now there is an investigation and there is a summary secret, but what I collect through the media, because it seems that the media are the ones who have the information and the contact with these people and they are the ones who they name these filters as my former employees. ” Morales adds that he fired one of his employees for trying to sell data about Assange to Ecuador, but we don't know if this is true and if this person witnesses the complaint.

In this dispute involving three countries, in addition to Assange and Morales, there is a vast amount of elements that CNN had access to, including 35 emails, 12 audio pieces, 10 videos, hundreds of documents, secret reports of the Ecuadorian government, intelligence notes, contracts, transcripts and also testimonies of former employees of UC Global. Most of this material is part of the accusation. However, this does not confirm that the material was destined for the CIA as Assange points out.

On the other hand, an FBI official told CNN that the agency has a file on Morales, but not what data it contains and when.

In an interview with CNN, Ecuador's Foreign Minister José Valencia said he did not know if Morales leaked information to the CIA or not, but warns that he notified UC Global that if this complaint is proven, he would face legal consequences for violating his confidentiality agreement with The Ecuadorian State

The CIA declined our requests for comment.

"Gold dust"

With the arrival of Assange in June 2012, Ecuador's embassy in London became a focus overnight. The headquarters was constantly besieged by dozens of followers, protesters, police and journalists. Police patrol cars strolled in front of the building and at the entrance, a parade of activists, hackers, artists and politicians ready to visit the most famous asylum in the world. According to the versions of Assange and Morales, some espionage agencies also monitored the headquarters from abroad.

The lawsuit claims that some Assange meetings with journalists and celebrities would also have been recorded. Among them, a visit by journalist Glenn Greenwald and her husband, and another by American actress Pamela Anderson, who has always defended the founder of WikiLeaks, stand out. These two recordings, obtained by CNN, do not contain audio.

• Meeting with Pamela Anderson - March 30, 2017

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• Meeting with Glenn Greenwald - September 17, 2017

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The government of Ecuador, under the presidency of Rafael Correa, then decided to launch an intelligence plan known as “Operation Hotel” according to documents from the embassy's security agency.

The idea was that Assange, the "guest" be monitored 24 hours a day by security guards. The plan sought to secure entry areas, avoid disputes with British guards stationed at the door, block the entry of unauthorized persons and register the entry of a long list of guests that Assange accumulated during his almost 7 years of asylum.

This operation, according to Ecuadorian government sources, was soon an opportunity to filter information about Assange and its visitors. The data collected, these sources say, became “gold dust” and ended up in the hands of several heads outside the Ecuadorian government, including international journalists and intelligence agencies. In 2015, the situation worsened when internal reports, photos and videos of the “guest” began to be published, which, some suspected, came from UC Global.

Morales told CNN that, although in 2018, in the final months of the contract with the Ecuadorian government, he learned that some employees had tried to sell information, data leaks on Assange emanated from the Ecuadorian side, specifically from the intelligence community environment With access to information.

David Morales

“We learned about information leaks through the Ecuadorian press. And, in denouncing this fact to the authorities [of Ecuador], we had no response. But this was not from us. The same press sometimes told us where the leaks came from and it was a shock to know that it came from an organization that is supposedly handling reserved information. ”Without naming it, Morales refers to the Senain, the intelligence secretariat that received all the reports of UC Global on Assange. This agency was dismantled in 2018 by the government of now President Lenin Moreno and replaced by the Center for Strategic Intelligence of Ecuador, CIES.

Two CIES sources, who worked in Assange's security for a long time and who asked not to reveal their identity for fear of retaliation from one of the parties, told CNN that the leaks, in effect, came from various sectors. But they add that they are certain that "UC Global employees, diplomats and agents of the Senain [who worked at the Ecuadorian embassy in London], leaked information about Assange to the CIA and Russian and British intelligence services." CNN cannot confirm this information independently.

Assange's accusation against Morales does not mention these facts. It only says that, based on the evidence collected and the testimony of several former employees of UC Global, they believe Morales ordered spying on Assange with cameras that captured audio, long-range microphones and recorders camouflaged between decorative objects and fire extinguishers. That later, the recordings were physically transferred by Morales to the United States. on trips that the employer made almost monthly. Morales denies it and says he made those trips for work reasons.

A former UC Global employee who asked not to be identified, told CNN that Morales did not tell them who the recipient of the information was. I would only have commented that it was for "the Americans", something that Morales rejects. It should be noted that this employee is in the middle of a labor dispute with Morales.

What happens in Las Vegas

It would all have started with a trip to Las Vegas.

The lawsuit alleges that, in mid-2015, when UC Global was already in charge of embassy security, Morales traveled to this city to participate in a security fair and promote UC Global, presenting himself as one of the contractors in charge of Assange's security.

Upon returning to Spain, Morales would have informed his team that from that moment they would play "in the first division." The workers, the document says, asked him what he meant by that. Without being very explicit, he allegedly replied that he had moved to the "dark side." According to Assange and his lawyers, this was a reference to "a possible collaboration with US authorities." Morales did not deny his trips to Las Vegas, but said it was "absurd" to insinuate, as the complaint does, that he would have been recruited on that trip to inform Assange to US intelligence.

“By telling them that we were in the first division, I was motivating them, because we are a small company that started from the bottom. It was pleasant to share progress with my employees, ”Morales said.

Days after that trip, Morales signed an important contract with the Las Vegas Sands company of the American tycoon Sheldon Adelson, donor of the Republican Party and according to various US media, friend of President Donald Trump. Although the details of the contract are unknown, the lawsuit says the goal was to provide security to the Queen Miri yacht, owned by Adelson, during its passage along the African coast.

“With this client we have a professional relationship. I have personally taken care of that client and his family in coordination with his security team. ” The businessman refrained from making more comments, said that out of respect for a confidentiality agreement in force with Las Vegas Sands.

However, the testimony of former employees cited in the complaint alleges that regardless of the contract with Adelson, Morales informed his team that "it had signed illegal agreements with US authorities to feed them sensitive information regarding Mr. Assange." The initial contact between Morales and the US intelligence agencies, the complaint says, would have been done precisely by the head of security at Las Vegas Sands, who allegedly asked Morales to collaborate with the US intelligence authorities. .UU. CNN cannot independently confirm this accusation and Las Vegas Sands did not respond to our request for comment.

Morales rejected the accusations. “No, I am not a double agent and it is absurd [to say] that I traveled to the United States. to personally deliver information to the CIA. The most logical thing, if that were the case, is that I did it in Madrid, where there is a very large US embassy, ​​or in any nearby country, ”Morales said. "They have sought a partnership with one of my clients, someone who is completely independent and oblivious to all this."

But the lawsuit details that Morales would have assigned specific tasks to his employees on how to spy on Assange and demanded that they not share information about their trips to the US with the Ecuadorian government. He would also have asked UC Global technicians to prepare a telephone and a computer with encrypted applications to communicate with "American friends."

David Morales

The spying war

Once Morales allegedly came into contact with US authorities, Ecuador's embassy in London became an extreme surveillance command, the complaint says.

The supervision was such that, apparently, not only spying on and preparing reports on Assange, but also on visitors. To that end, the lawsuit argues that in December 2017, UC Global managed the installation of new cameras capable of capturing sound. Also, a microphone in Assange's room. Apparently, "yellow stickers on the windows" would have been installed to identify where there were security cameras with a microphone and thus, US intelligence agents could point with "laser" and extract the sound of the conversations.

For the plaintiffs, the change of cameras, with microphones included, had only one purpose: to record and listen to the meetings that Assange held with his lawyers and other visitors. Then, an alleged specialized unit formed by Morales to spy on Assange "would travel repeatedly from Cádiz to London to collect the recordings of those cameras" and move them back to Spain, so the demand says. Once in the hands of Morales, he would take them to the US.

• Video of Assange with lawyer Geoffrey Ronald Robertson - January 17, 2018

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Assange's lawyers believe that this can be interpreted from the dozens of emails Morales would have shared with his employees. However, CNN reviewed the messages and found no mention of the transfer of information to the US.

Morales admits the existence of emails. He says that the installation of the cameras with audio was requested and authorized by the Senain and the Ecuadorian government. The businessman added that the cameras had microphones, but said they never worked properly. “There was never audio. If there are videos with audios please show them. That does not exist".

Morales' statement is contrasted by 10 videos that CNN reviewed from Assange meetings with lawyers, doctors and visitors. Some have audio and others do not, because they would have been done before the installation of the new cameras.

Assange's lawyers insist that neither they nor their client were aware that the cameras captured sounds. The Ecuadorian authorities say otherwise.

Ecuador's foreign minister, José Valencia, told CNN that the cameras did have microphones, but that the cameras were visible and that is why Assange cannot victimize himself. “The cameras were public, they were like the cameras of a bank. They were public, visible, not hidden behind a mirror, much less. They recorded audio and this was known by Mr. Assange and those who visited him, ”says the chancellor.

• Statements by José Valencia, Chancellor of Ecuador

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Likewise, CNN obtained an official document from the Senain where Morales is discussed changing the cameras that capture sound.

The construction of the case

The legal team of Assange bases the demand on a central axis: the supposed relationship between Morales and the CIA.

They infer, without direct support, that the espionage scheme against the founder of WikiLeaks coincides with the arrival of Donald Trump to the US presidency. and with the investigations of the Department of Justice on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The lawyers of the complaint cite a message that Morales would have sent to his employees asking them to “top priority” profiles of Bernd Fix and Andrew Müller-Maguhn, two German programmers who visited Assange on several occasions and pay attention on whether Fix, Müller-Maguhn, or any Russian person carried “mobile phones, pen drives, computers or any electronic equipment” to the embassy to photograph them.

This fact is related to the case that Assange faces in the US, as Müller-Maguhn was mentioned in the special report of US prosecutor Robert Mueller about Russian interference in the 2016 elections as one of the people he could have attended with the transfer of documents stolen by Russia and sent to Assange and WikiLeaks to be published online.

When consulted by CNN, Müller-Maguhn declined to comment on his meetings with Assange. But before, he had told The Washington Post that he never had hacked materials in his possession. Fix, meanwhile, could not be located.

That mass dissemination was the main focus of the investigation by prosecutor Mueller, who concluded that the mails were hacked by Russia and delivered to Assange through virtual operators to affect the then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and favor Trump, the Republican. Assange has repeatedly denied working for the Kremlin.

Morales would also have collected data for US intelligence that, according to the lawsuit, was already known to Ecuador. For example, they cite an email in which Morales asks his employees to provide data on the internet connection at the headquarters, the list of diplomatic mission phones, profiles of the people closest to Assange, composition of the walls surrounding the room of the "guest" and photos of the furniture. In that same email, Morales would have told them to "alert you" because the "SENAIN is investigating us" and asked that his trips to the US "Drive [n] with reservation".

Morales says it is normal to ask for discretion about his trips because he works with high profile clients and although he did not offer more details due to the confidentiality agreement he signed with the Ecuadorian State, he did suggest that it was an order from Ecuador.

In the course of this investigation, CNN had access to an email that the ambassador of Ecuador in London between 2015 and 2018, Carlos Abad, sent to Morales where it is pointed out that the detailed profiling of Assange collaborators and WikiLeaks workers mentioned in the previous mail would have been requested by the ambassador himself. Security sources of the diplomatic headquarters also confirm this information.

Ambassador Abad died on November 29 in Ecuador. CNN could not talk to him before his death.

Mr. "X"

But the assumption that Morales and his team carried out these activities at the request of the Ecuadorian government does not satisfy the legal team of Assange. The lawsuit alleges that, although he proposed to Ecuador to install new cameras and equipment, once the project was authorized, he used it as an opportunity to spy for “American friends”.

The document cites an email from October 2017, in which Morales would have ordered the installation of a private virtual network known as VPN, asking that “the entire project (from installation to management) corresponds to us,” that is, UC Global. In another line Morales adds where he suggests that "the issue of VPN connections should be beyond the reach of local computer experts," technicians who had been hired directly by Ecuador. Without specifying names, the employer replies that he did not trust some local employees.

Two months later, in December of that year, a Morales worker exchanged emails with a provider about the new cameras that had been installed that month. The image quality seemed good, but they needed to improve the audio to make the recordings. "You can hardly understand what he says," says the employee in the message.

That same month. Morales talked with his employees about the installation of a streaming system so that other users, outside the embassy, ​​could watch the videos from inside the embassy in real time. Ecuador would not be aware of those who had access. “… We must program it so that they only see what interests us and we must not give it access to certain services of the program, so that they cannot visualize who has more connections or who is connected to the system,” Morales says in an email . He adds that "everything should seem like they have access." Apparently, their employees disagreed

Due to various technical failures and the risk of hacking, streaming never operated. That is what the former workers mentioned in the lawsuit agree, those consulted by CNN and Morales. However, in another email sent in January 2018 Morales mentions streaming again and tells his employees who the people with access lines to the connection would be: "one for Ecuador, one for us and one for X". Assange's lawyers claim that "X" were the US intelligence agents.

Morales did not want to refer to who would be the recipient "X" claiming that the confidentiality contract with the Ecuadorian State is forbidden, but clarified that this information was known by the government of President Moreno and that it was not someone outside that sector .

During this investigation, CNN also made important findings that allude to that "X" could be someone within the Ecuadorian government. Among them, a reserved trade dated February 5, 2018, sent by Ambassador Abad to UC Global, confirming that since January 2017 a confidential collaboration agreement would be in force, regarding security, between Abab and Morales. In essence, that agreement would have established the exchange of information on Assange's activities at the embassy. Thus, the Senain, where information leaks had already been reported, would cease to be the exclusive channel of the government to receive reports on the "guest."

Foreign Minister Valencia told CNN not to be aware of this agreement, but mentioned that it is unusual for intelligence services to have contact with diplomatic services.

CNN could not speak with Ambassador Abad before his death.

When you "spy" on the spy

Espionage was not only against Assange, the lawsuit says.

The document argues that, as he did with many Assange visitors, Morales also recorded his meeting with Rommy Vallejo, the then head of Ecuadorian intelligence and leader of the Senain, Ecuador's own intelligence agency. This happened during a visit that Vallejo made to Assange on December 21, 2017.

• Meeting with Rommy Vallejo - December 21, 2017

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The recording of this conversation, obtained by CNN, does contain audio, although with failures, because once inside the embassy meeting room, Assange turned on a machine to distort the audio, as one of the videos we obtained shows. That meeting was monitored in detail by UC Global staff, who wrote notes on the meeting to which CNN had access. According to the notes, at that meeting Vallejo would have told Assange that Lenin Moreno, who assumed the presidency in May 2017, wanted to “take him away from the embassy” but that he would be doing everything possible to avoid it. CNN cannot verify this information independently.

At that meeting Assange and Vallejo also discussed a possible extraction plan to take the WikiLeaks founder to Russia. CNN confirmed this information through official documents.

For the plan, Assange was granted Ecuadorian nationality two weeks before, and then he was appointed deputy secretary of the Ecuadorian embassy in Moscow by then-chancellor Maria Fernanda Espinosa. The operation, however, did not materialize because the United Kingdom did not grant the safe-conduct requested by Ecuador to take it to Russia without being arrested.

A day after the meeting between Assange and Vallejo, says the complaint that Morales received the video of the meeting. So does an email that Morales sent to his employees, in which he comments that “the video is fine” but that it is necessary to take “everything you can” from that day at the embassy “even [the images] of the other camera from the other angle of the meeting room. ” The subject of the email says only "V".

When questioned about this fact, Morales said: “We simply have the requirement to verify, by the institution [Senain] itself that this man is going to appear at the embassy and that once completed, the agent deployed at the embassy he would be in charge of recovering those images in order to send them to Ecuador. ”

Vallejo was fired nine months after Moreno's arrival, amid reports of espionage to opposition politicians and journalists. The former intelligence chief did not respond to our requests for comment.

Vallejo was very close to former President Rafael Correa, who granted Assange asylum and who, after leaving the government, became the enemy of his successor, President Lenin Moreno.

Despite having been partners in the formula and having worked as his vice president for several years, once in office, Moreno eliminated some policies from his predecessor, including the asylum granted to Assange.

The president justified the measure by ensuring that the founder of WikiLeaks "violated the rule of intervening in internal affairs of other countries." Ecuador also argued that Assange's behavior was erratic and cited moments when he starred in fights with security guards at the embassy, ​​confronted an ambassador and installed sophisticated microphones and other devices to spy on diplomats. Assange's lawyers have said that these reports were exaggerated.

LEE: Exclusive: Surveillance reports reveal how Assange transformed an embassy into an operations center to interfere with the 2016 election in the US.

An Ecuadorian intelligence source told CNN that, given the systematic excesses of the “guest,” the Moreno government intensified control measures, applied a security and coexistence protocol, and intensified espionage. They sought to prevent Assange from affecting Ecuador's relationship with other countries.

In fact, in one of the emails cited by the complaint, Morales tells his employees that he would have received instructions, apparently from the government of Ecuador, to prepare an analysis on the "guest" that includes what the reaction of some countries would be if He left the “hotel” and where he asked to install microphones in Assange's room. Ecuador has said that, during his stay at the embassy, ​​Assange was respected for all his rights and that he had benefits that asylees generally do not obtain.

The last day of UC Global in London

April 2018 marked a first epilogue of espionage at the embassy.

After the dismantling of the Senain and the replacement of Vallejo as head of intelligence, Ecuador decided to cancel the services of UC Global. The company, which received a monthly payment of US $ 84,000, was signaled for alleged contractual breaches and for the justified collection of some services. Due to these facts, trials are also being held in Ecuador where the company has already closed its doors. “UC Global has been used as a throwing weapon [by the governments of Correa and Moreno] and they have been completely distorting us. Everyone has tried to find a way to attack the opposite and in the middle is our company, ”Morales said about this case.

UC Global was replaced by Promsecurity, an Ecuadorian firm.The new company activated strict controls within the embassy and applied security and coexistence protocols. None of that slowed the leakage of information.

In the following months, numerous newspapers and television networks continued to publish data, videos and photos on the life of the "guest" at the diplomatic headquarters and even a group of journalists was accused of extortion after demanding WikiLeaks several million dollars in return of not publishing information about Assange. The Promsecurity company was affected and Assange sued them for alleged leakage. CNN could not communicate with the company to know their reaction and our calls to the headquarters in Quito were not answered.

All this came to an end when in April 2019 Ecuador revoked Assange's political asylum, allowing British police to enter the diplomatic headquarters to be arrested.

Very little is known about his days in prison, but that silence could end on December 20, when Assange witnesses the case he is pushing against Morales and UC Global. The Australian will give his testimony from London.