Ecuador's government acknowledged restricting Julian Assange's internet access after WikiLeaks published campaign documents from US Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

"The government of Ecuador respects the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of other states," the Foreign Ministry announced in a statement Tuesday.    

Assange was cut off during an embarrassing run for Clinton's campaign as she attempts to close the door to the White House on the Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Several tranches of emails to and from Clinton adviser John Podesta reveal concerns about the candidate's coziness with Wall Street banks, her support for an environmentally hazardous method of natural gas extraction known as fracking and comfort with the notion of covert actions by the US military - provided that it stay secret. Had the emails been released months ago, there could have been a very different result in the former secretary of state's run against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for one of the US's two major-party presidential nominations.

WikiLeaks won't reveal the source of the emails to and from Podesta, a longtime Clinton loyalist and a White House aide to her husband, Bill. US intelligence officials have claimed that agents working on behalf of Russia's government have hacked the Clinton campaign's emails in an attempt to carry out a Kremlin plot to interfere in the election to replace President Barack Obama.

(DW)