‘Suffering’ Assange asks court to cancel arrest warrant

♦ Julian Assange has pleaded for a warrant for his arrest to be cancelled so he can leave the Ecuadorean embassy as he is suffering from “depression and a terribly bad tooth”.

The Wikileaks founder, 46, who has been living there for five and a half years, has argued that the only thing stopping him leaving the building and travelling to Ecuador is a threat that he will be held by police for breaching his bail conditions. His lawyers argue that as proceedings in Sweden over rape claims have now been dropped, the British arrest warrant has lost its purpose.

But he is unlikely to leave the Knightsbridge embassy until Emma Arbuthnot, the chief magistrate at Westminster magistrates’ court, gives her judgment next month. “I am concerned there are medical issues,” she said. “I am aware that he has depression, frozen shoulder and a terribly bad tooth.”