President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has agreed to grant political asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. “Quito decided to grant diplomatic asylum to citizen Julian Assange,” said the highest Ecuadorian diplomat. The Foreign Office of Great Britain could lift Ecuador’s diplomatic embassy status to meet its “legal obligation” on extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, according to the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, according to BBC News Online.
This allows Britain to revoke the diplomatic status of an embassy on British soil, possibly to allow police to enter the building to arrest Assange for violation of bail terms. Assange says he fears that if he would be extradited to Sweden, he will afterwards be handed over to U.S. authorities. In 2010, two women, former Wikileaks volunteers accused Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, of sexual assault, during a conference in Stockholm.
Assange said that relations were consensual and that the charges are politically motivated. “While today much of the focus will be on the decision of the Ecuadorean government, it is just as important that we remember Bradley Manning has been detained without trial for over 800 days,” making a references to the former U.S. soldier accused of disclosing government documents to Wikileaks.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, said the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange fled on June 19, could be assailed if the Australian will not be taken be the British to be further extradited to Sweden. “They could storm the embassy, if Ecuador does not hand over Julian Assange to British authorities,” said Patino.
Wikileaks founder has been since June 19 in the Ecuador Embassy in London, asking for political asylum in the context of British justice upheld his extradition to Sweden, where he is accused of sexual assault. Assange claims that extradition to Sweden would pave the way to transfer him to the United States, where he risks death penalty for the distribution of tens of thousands of confidential messages, both diplomatic and military.
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