Ecuador grants Assange asylum; UK vows to ‘carry out’ extradition anyway

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – Thu, Aug 16, 2012

Ecuador's foreign minister announced on Thursday that the country would grant asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, defying threats by the British government to storm the Ecuadorean Embassy and extradite Assange to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in cases of alleged rape and sexual molestation.

"We have decided to grant political asylum to him," Ricardo Patino said at the end of a long televised statement from the Ecuadorean capital of Quito, where he criticized the U.S. and U.K. governments for failing to protect Assange from political persecution.

"The countries that have a right to protect Assange have failed him," Patino said. "[Assange] is victim of political persecution. ... If Assange is extradited to U.S., he will not receive a fair trial."

The foreign minister said that Ecuador asked Sweden to promise it would not extradite Assange to the United States, but Sweden refused.

"Asylum is a fundamental human right," Patino said, adding that "international law" overrides local laws, and that Assange has "the right not to be extradited or expelled to any country."

A crowd gathered outside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where Assange, a 41-year-old Australian native, has been holed up since June, to hear the announcement. At least one protester was arrested.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office called Ecuador's decision to grant Assange asylum "regrettable."

"British authorities are under a binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden," a spokesman for the office said. "We shall carry out that obligation. The Ecuadorean government's decision this afternoon does not change that."

"We will not allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the United Kingdom," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said at a press conference. "Nor is there any legal basis for us to do so. The United Kingdom does not recognize the principle of diplomatic asylum."

According to The Associated Press, Sweden summoned Ecuador's ambassador to Stockholm, calling the decision to grant asylum to Assange "unacceptable."

Moments before the announcement, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa tweeted: "No one is going to terrorize us!"

It's unclear what will happen to Assange now. U.K. authorities say his asylum is a violation of his probation—and there is reason to believe he would be arrested if he tried to leave the embassy. "Assange is going to Sweden," Louise Mensch, a conservative member of the British Parliament,tweeted. "We are going to extradite him there. That's it and that's all. #rape."

Assange fears that if he were extradited to Sweden, he would immediately be extradited to the United States, which has condemned WikiLeaks' publication of classified documents. Assange and his supporters say the U.S. would charge him with espionage; the U.S. has not said whether or not it would pursue charges against him.

On Thursday, the White House declined to comment on Assange.

On Wednesday, Patino said he received a "clear and written" threat from British authorities who claimed "they could storm our embassy in London if Ecuador refuses to hand in Julian Assange."

"We want to be very clear, we're not a British colony," Patino said. "Colonial times are over."

British officials said they are obligated to turn Assange over to Stockholm.

"The U.K. has a legal obligation to extradite Mr. Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offenses and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation," a spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in response. "Under British law we can give them a week's notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection. But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution."

Britain, the BBC noted, could lift the Ecuadorean Embassy's diplomatic status to fulfill a "legal obligation" to extradite Assange using the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987:

That allows the U.K. to revoke the diplomatic status of an embassy on U.K. soil, which would potentially allow police to enter the building to arrest Mr. Assange for breaching the terms of his bail.

Such a move, though, would be unprecedented.

In a statement early Thursday, WikiLeaks condemned the U.K.'s threat to raid the embassy:

A threat of this nature is a hostile and extreme act, which is not proportionate to the circumstances, and an unprecedented assault on the rights of asylum seekers worldwide.

In 2010, Swedish prosecutors in Stockholm issued warrants to question Assange about alleged sex crimes involving a pair of former WikiLeaks volunteers. Assange claims the charges are part of an international smear campaign stemming from WikiLeaks' publication of diplomatic cables.

After a brief international manhunt, Assange turned himself in to London police in December 2010. He was granted bail and placed under house arrest. After Assange's appeals to fight his extradition to Sweden were denied, he fled to the Ecuadorean Embassy.

Inside the embassy, Assange "sleeps on an air mattress in a small office that has been converted to a bedroom," according to The New York Times. "He has access to a computer and continues to oversee WikiLeaks, his lieutenants have said."

According to Sky News, Assange watched the announcement from inside the building and welcomed it as a "significant victory," but added: "Things will get more stressful now."

According to WikiLeaks, Assange "will give a live statement in front of the Ecuadorean embassy" on Sunday at 2 p.m. local time.

Filmmaker Michael Moore, one of several Assange supporters who contributed funds to guarantee his bail, applauded the decision, and urged Londoners to demonstrate outside the embassy. "As Americans we were lied [to] by our government about Iraq," Moore wrote on Twitter. "He exposed the truth."

Ecuador, it's worth noting, has a horrible record on press freedom.

And Correa, in particular, has had a "torrid relationship" with the press, Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote in a recent editorial. "His arsenal of repression includes such tactics as pre-empting private broadcasts to denounce the presenters, bankrupting papers through defamation suits, and publicly shouting down critics who dare question him."

Europe

'Assange will not get safe passage out of UK'

Assange's lawyer says Swedish prosecutors should question him in London as Britain says he will not get safe exit. Aljazeera - Last Modified: 17 Aug 2012 02:53 British Foreign Secretary William Hague says that the United Kingdom will not allow Julian Assange safe passage out of the country, but his lawyer has said that prosecutors from Sweden, where he faces questioning in a sexual assault case, should travel to London to conduct their work. Hague said on Thursday that Britain would not grant Assange safe passage because "there is no legal basis for us to do so" and that he was wanted in Sweden to answer allegations of "serious sexual offenses". He said the extradition had nothing to do with the work of WikiLeaks or with a desire by US authorities to try him for publishing diplomatic secrets but rather a case in which two Swedish women have filed complaints against Assange for sexual assault. Assange fears Sweden could send him on to the US, where he believes authorities want to punish him for publishing thousands of secret US diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks in 2010 in a major embarrassment for the US. The US has however denied charges that it was pressurising Britain to seize Assange.  State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters, "It is an issue among the countries involved and we are not planning to interject ourselves." The EU has also distanced itself from the furore with its foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton saying on Thursday that this was "a bilateral issue between the UK and Ecuador". Per E Samuelsson, one of the lawyers representing Assange, called on Swedish Prosecutor Marianne Ny to travel to London to interrogate Assange. "This means that he has been granted political asylum and that means that an arrest warrant from Sweden can no longer be affected by Great Britain and in it's turn it means that the Swedish prosecutor, in my opinion, must change her attitude and immediately go to London and interrogate Julian Assange, at the embassy of Ecuador..." Samuelsson said he had requested the prosecutor to do so two weeks ago but she declined to do that. Sweden rejects accusation The Ecuador government earlier on Thursday granted political asylum to Assange after Britain, on Wednesday, issued a warning to Ecuador that it could raid its London embassy  where Assange has been taking refuge since mid-June.  Ricardo Patino, Ecuador's foreign minister, made the announcement during a press conference in Quito on Thursday. The Ecuador government, loyal to its tradition to protect those who seek refuge with us at our diplomatic missions, has decided to grant diplomatic asylum to Mr Assange," Patino said. He said that Ecuador found that Assange faces a real threat of political persecution including the threat of extradition to the United States, where Patino said the Australian would not get a fair trial and could face the death penalty. However, Sweden on Thursday rejected Ecuador’s claim that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange would not get a fair trial as a reason for granting him political asylum, and summoned Quito’s envoy to explain. “Our firm legal and constitutional system guarantees the rights of each and everyone. We firmly reject any accusations to the contrary,” Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on his Twitter account. Swedish foreign ministry spokesman Anders Joerle however said,  “The accusations that [the Ecuadoran foreign ministry] has formulated are serious and it is unacceptable that Ecuador would want to halt the Swedish judicial process and European judicial cooperation.” The UK's foreign office said that the British government remained "committed to a negotiated solution" that would allow UK authorities to extradite Assange to Sweden, where he faces questioning in a sexual assault case. "We are disappointed by the statement from Ecuador’s Foreign Minister that Ecuador has offered political asylum to Julian Assange.  Under our law, with Mr Assange having exhausted all options of appeal, the British authorities are under a binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden.  We shall carry out that obligation," a Foreign Office spokesperson said. "The UK has a legal obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offences and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation," a Foreign Office spokesperson said earlier. Diplomatic spat Britain's foreign office issued the ultimatum to Ecuador on Wednesday which has erupted into a diplomatic spat. "Under British law we can give them a week's notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," a Foreign Office spokesperson said on Wednesday. "But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution." Ecuador foreign minister, Patino said in a statement after a meeting with President Rafael Correa held after the FO had issued its warning, "We want to be very clear, we're not a British colony. The colonial times are over." "The move announced in the official British statement, if it happens, would be interpreted by Ecuador as an unfriendly, hostile and intolerable act, as well as an attack on our sovereignty, which would force us to respond in the strongest diplomatic way. Assange, an Australian citizen, has been in the Ecuadorian embassy for eight weeks since losing a legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden. Swedish prosecutors have not yet charged Assange, but they have moved forward with their investigations and they believe they have a case to take to trial. Even though he has been granted asylum, Assange has little chance of leaving the Ecuadorean embassy in London without being arrested. Source: Al Jazeera and agencies