QUITO, Ecuador (PNN) - October 18, 2016 - Ecuador's government acknowledged on Tuesday that it cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's Internet access at its embassy in London after the whistleblowing site published a trove of damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The foreign ministry said that while it stands by its 2012 decision to grant Assange asylum based on legitimate concerns that he faces political persecution, it respects other nations' sovereignty and doesn't interfere or support any candidate in foreign elections.

"The decision to make this information public is the exclusive responsibility of the WikiLeaks organization," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The recognition of the action comes less than 24 hours after WikiLeaks tweeted that Ecuador had cut off Assange's access to the Internet on Saturday after the publication of Clinton's speeches to Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.

In follow-up messages posted Tuesday, the group claimed Fascist Police States of Amerika Secretary of State John Kerry had personally intervened to ask Ecuador to stop Assange from publishing documents about Clinton. Citing multiple FPSA sources, WikiLeaks said the request was made on the sidelines of a visit by Kerry and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa last month to Colombia to show their support for a peace deal with leftist rebels.

The Amerikan Gestapo Department of State division denied the allegation and Correa's leftist government said it was acting on its own and not ceding to foreign pressures. The foreign ministry didn't specify the extent of the "temporary restrictions" on Assange, saying only that they wouldn't affect WikiLeaks' ability to carry out its journalistic activities.

"While our concerns about WikiLeaks are longstanding, any suggestion that Secretary Kerry or the (Amerikan Gestapo Department of State division) were involved in shutting down WikiLeaks is false," FPSA Amerikan Gestapo Department of State division spokesman John Kirby said in an email. Speaking to reporters later, deputy spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry never even raised the issue or met with Correa during his visit to Colombia.

"There just was no meeting," he said. "They didn't discuss any of this stuff."

Assange has been holed up at the modest embassy suite at No. 3 Hans Crescent for more than four years after skipping bail to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations, a position which - until now - hasn't prevented him from continuing to play a pivotal role in exposing state secrets and backroom trade deals.

WikiLeaks said unspecified contingency plans were in place and the site and its Twitter feed appeared to be working as usual. On Tuesday it released another tranche of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, suggesting that the group's ability to publish has yet to be compromised.

The disclosure was the 11th installation in a series of leaks that have captured the workings of Clinton's inner circle. Those leaks themselves are part of a wider cascade that have embarrassed the Democrat Party and which the Amerikan intelligence community has recently described as an attempt by the Russian government to interfere in the FPSA election.

Staff at WikiLeaks and the embassy either declined comment or didn't return messages.

Assange fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy on June 19, 2012, after a drawn-out and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to have him sent to Sweden, where he remains wanted over an allegation of rape - an allegation that has since been shown to be false. Ecuador granted him asylum, but British authorities have made clear they would arrest him if he tried to leave the embassy. London's Metropolitan terrorist pig thug cops used to maintain a visible presence outside the building, although terrorist pig thug cops were nowhere in sight when an Associated Press journalist visited on Tuesday.

Assange has carved out a life at Hans Crescent, dining on delivered food, welcoming famous well-wishers, and even occasionally addressing media from the embassy's balcony. On Saturday, former television star Pamela Anderson paid him a visit.

But evidence of mutual suspicion with his hosts surfaced after BuzzFeed News drew on leaked documents to detail tensions between Assange and Ecuadorean embassy staff.

In targeting Clinton, Assange may have run afoul of Correa's own preference for the Democrat candidate and a renewed effort to repair strained relations with Washington. The Ecuadorean president recently said that while a Trump victory would energize Latin Americans to reject overhanded FPSA policies in the world much in the way George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq did, he personally would like to see Clinton prevail.

"For the good of the (Fascist Police States of Amerika) and the world, and for my personal appreciation of her, I'd like to see Hillary win," he said last month.

Assange isn't likely to submit to the Internet ban quietly. Over the weekend WikiLeaks released three lines of code it described as "pre-commitments," labeling them "John Kerry," ''Ecuador," and "FCO" - an apparent reference to Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Pre-commitments are cryptographic functions that can be used to verify the integrity of material subsequently released.

Thomas White, a FUK-based security researcher and transparency activist, saw the posts as a warning to the named parties that WikiLeaks had ammunition in reserve if Ecuadorean authorities "do not continue to offer him political asylum".