Wikileaks founder triggers a diplomatic standoff between Britain and Ecuador.
Move not expected to stop extradition
LONDON — He’s won asylum in Ecuador, but Julian Assange is no closer to getting there.
The dramatic decision by the Latin American country to identify the WikiLeaks founder as a political refugee is a symbolic boost for the embattled ex-hacker, but legal experts say it does little to help him avoid extradition to Sweden — and does much to drag Britain and Ecuador into a contentious international faceoff.
“We’re at something of an impasse,” lawyer Rebecca Niblock said after the news broke. “It’s not a question of law anymore. It’s a question of politics and diplomacy.”
The silver-haired Austral- ian shot to international prominence in 2010 after he began publishing a huge trove of U.S. diplomatic and military secrets — including a quarter-million cables from U.S. embassies that shed a harsh light on the backroom dealings of U.S. diplomats. Amid the ferment, two Swedish women accused him of sexual assault and Assange has been fighting extradition to Sweden ever since.
The convoluted saga took its latest twist on Thursday, when Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino announced that he had granted political asylum to Assange, who had been holed up at the small, coastal nation’s em- bassy since June 19. He said Ecuador was taking action because Assange faces a serious threat of unjust prosecution at the hands of U.S. officials.
Patino said there were “serious indications” that the U.S. could threaten Assange’s “security, integrity and even his life,” a nod to the fears expressed by Assange and others that the Swedish sex case is merely the opening gambit in a Washington-orchestrated plot to make him stand trial in the U.S., something disputed by both Swedish authorities and the women involved.
He said he’d tried to get guarantees from the Americans, the British and the Swedes that Assange would not be extradited to the U.S., but that all three had rebuffed him. He said it was clear that if Assange were extradited to the U.S., “he would not have a fair trial, could be judged by special or military courts and it’s not implausible that cruel and degrading treatment could be applied, that he could be condemned to life in prison or the death penalty.”
Patino’s decision was well received by cheering pro-Assange demonstrators outside the embassy building, just down the street from Harrods department store.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain will not allow Assange safe passage out of the country. “There is no legal basis for us to do so.”
The issue seems to have frayed diplomatic ties between the U.K. and Ecuador. They could fray much further if Britain decides to enforce a little-known 1987 law that gives the U.K. the right to enter the embassy to arrest Assange, a development most legal experts called unlikely and potentially dangerous.
If Britain carried out the move, “it would threaten their embassy premises around the world,” Niblock said.