http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2189515/The-WikiLeaks-siege-fiasco-As-tiny-Ecuador-saves-Assange-extradition-granting-asylum-40-police-surround-embassy--steps-outside-ll-pounce.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/us-wikileaks-assange-ecuador-idUSBRE87E16N20120815
The WikiLeaks siege fiasco: As tiny Ecuador saves Assange from extradition by granting asylum, 40 police surround embassy... and if he steps outside, they’ll pounce
- Julian Assange has hid from law for nearly two months in embassy
- Police operation will cost at least £50,000 a day
- Fears he could be smuggled out in a diplomatic bag
- Ecuadorian foreign minister: Assange could face death penalty if sent to US by Sweden
- William Hague: Asylum was being used ‘for the purposes of escaping the regular processes of the court’
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Refuge: Julian Assange has been granted asylum by Ecuador
Britain was locked in a farcical diplomatic stand-off with Ecuador last night after the South American country granted asylum to WikiLeaks fugitive Julian Assange.
Assange, who is wanted in Sweden on rape and sexual assault charges, has spent nearly two months hiding from the law in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Yesterday more than 40 policemen surrounded the building in central London to ensure the Australian could not be smuggled out.
A further six officers were stationed in the communal areas of the building, guarding lifts and access to the roof, as part of an operation that will cost at least £50,000 a day.
The moment Mr Assange sets foot outside the confines of the embassy, which is just yards from Harrods, the 41-year-old will be arrested.
Police will be equipped with heat detection equipment to beat any attempt to use special diplomatic bags or furniture to aid his escape.
Scores of his supporters added to the circus atmosphere chanting ‘hands off Ecuador’ and ‘Julian Assange freedom fighter’.
Many of them wore masks associated with the Anonymous hacking group that has attacked government websites.
There was applause as the Ecuadorian foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, declared that Assange had been given ‘diplomatic asylum’ at a press conference in the capital, Quito.
Scroll down to hear from William Hague
A supporter of the WikiLeaks founder is tackled by police in London yesterday
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Supporters of Julian Assange, who faces extradition to Sweden, gather outside the Ecuador embassy in Knightsbridge yesterday
‘We believe that his fears are legitimate and there are the threats that he could face political persecution.
'We trust that that the UK will offer as soon as possible the guarantee for the safe passage of asylum for Mr Assange and they will respect those international agreements they have signed in the past.’
Yesterday, less than 24 hours after threatening to rescind the building’s diplomatic protections and forcibly enter it, the Foreign Office was forced into a humiliating climbdown.
It accepted the need for a ‘a negotiated solution’ to the deadlock and was reduced to insisting that Mr Assange would be arrested if he tried to leave.
Police officers outside the Embassy of Ecuador in Knightsbridge, central London, as the tension increases between the two countries
A supporter of Julian Assange is removed by police outside the Ecuador embassy as the crowd grew. It is not known whether he was arrested
If an agreement is not reached and he cannot escape, he could be forced to spend months or even years in legal limbo inside the embassy building, where he has until recently been forced to sleep on a blow-up bed.
Ministers’ only option appears to be to encourage other countries to put pressure on Ecuador to agree a deal.
The row over Mr Assange’s future erupted on Wednesday night when Ecuador’s foreign minister went public with a note from the British charge d’affairs threatening to use an obscure law to rescind the building’s diplomatic status, storm the building and make the arrest.
British officials said it was an attempt to ‘rattle their cage’ but Mr Patino reacted with fury, claiming such a move would be seen as a ‘hostile act’.
Announcing the decision to award ‘diplomatic asylum’ in a televised statement yesterday, he said Mr Assange was a victim of political persecution and could face the death penalty if sent to the US by Sweden.
Mr Assange’s supporters fear he could face charges of sedition and espionage over the release of tens of thousands of secret US documents by the WikiLeaks site two years ago.
Mr Patino said: ‘It is not impossible that he would be treated in a cruel manner, condemned to life in prison, or even the death penalty.’
The decision was condemned by Foreign Secretary William Hague who said asylum was being used ‘for the purposes of escaping the regular processes of the court.’
He added: ‘No one, least of all the government of Ecuador, should be in any doubt that we are determined to carry out our legal obligation to see Mr Assange extradited to Sweden.
‘This is not about Mr Assange’s activities at WikiLeaks or the attitude of the United States of America.
'He is wanted in Sweden to answer allegations of serious sexual offences.’
Both the Prime Minister and Nick Clegg’s private offices spoke yesterday morning to William Hague’s office urging that the rhetoric be toned down.
‘The message was “calm the heck down”,’ a senior Whitehall source said.
Mr Hague admitted he had authorised the communications with Ecuador, including the reference to the 1987 Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act which allow the suspension of normal embassy rules.
The law was a response to the shooting dead of WPC Yvonne Fletcher from inside the Libyan embassy in 1984.
Last night senior diplomats privately condemned the Ecuadorian government which they said had been captured by left-wingers similar to Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chavez – who regard Mr Assange as a hero because they hate the United States.
‘There is evidence that he did not turn up there by accident,’ a senior source said.
Mr Assange welcomed the decision to grant him asylum as a ‘significant victory’ made by a ‘courageous, independent Latin American nation’.
Last night the WikiLeaks Twitter feed announced he would make a televised statement from the embassy on Sunday – in what would be a further humiliation for ministers.
His lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson QC, claimed the blunder over the threatening letter happened because ‘all the good lawyers’ at the Foreign Office were away on holiday.
Human rights activists poured scorn on Ecuador’s claim to be protecting human rights.
The regime has a notorious record for persecuting both journalists and its political opponents.
Mr Assange entered the embassy on June 19, after a two-year legal battle against extradition under the European Arrest Warrant.
His case against extradition was rejected by a district court, at the High Court and went all the way to the Supreme Court where it also failed.
He was granted bail after sureties worth nearly £250,000 were pledged by his supporters, who include film director Ken Loach, socialite Jemima Khan and journalist John Pilger.
A hearing has been set for next month when a judge will decide if the money should be forfeit.
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(Reuters) - Britain on Wednesday warned Ecuador that it could raid its London embassy if Quito does not hand over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been taking refuge at the mission since mid-June.
In Quito, the Ecuadorean government said that any such action would be considered a violation of its sovereignty a "hostile and intolerable act."
"Under British law we can give them a weeks' notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "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."
In Quito, the government bristled at the threat and said it would announce its decision on Assange's asylum request on Thursday at 7 a.m. (1200 GMT).
"We want to be very clear, we're not a British colony. The colonial times are over," Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said in an angry statement after a meeting with President Rafael Correa.
"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," Patino told reporters.
Ecuador, whose government is part of a left-leaning bloc of nations in South America, called for meetings of regional foreign ministers and the hemispheric Organization of American States to rally support in its complaint against Britain.
WANTED IN SWEDEN
The Australian has been in the embassy for eight weeks since losing a legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused of rape and sexual assault by two WikiLeaks supporters.
"The UK has a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offences and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation," a Foreign Office spokesman said earlier.
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.
Assange fears Sweden could send him on to the United States, where he believes authorities want to punish him for publishing thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks in 2010 in a major embarrassment for Washington.
Even if he were granted asylum, Assange has little chance of leaving the Ecuadorean embassy in London without being arrested.
The red-brick embassy building, just outside London's famed Harrods department store, was under tight surveillance late into the night, with three police officers manning the entrance and several others patrolling around the premises of the building.
There has been speculation he could travel to an airport in a diplomatic car, be smuggled out in a diplomatic bag, or even be appointed an Ecuadorean diplomat to give him immunity.
But lawyers and diplomats see those scenarios as practically unworkable.
The Ecuadorean government has said it wants to avoid Assange's extradition to Sweden, but approval of asylum would offer no legal protection in Britain where police will arrest him once they get a chance.
"The question of asylum is arguably a red herring," said former British government lawyer Carl Gardner.
Ecuador's leader Correa is a self-declared enemy of "corrupt" media and U.S. "imperialism", and apparently hit it off with Assange during a TV interview the Australian did with him in May.
Correa joked then with Assange that he had joined "the club of the persecuted".
Some, though, find Assange's connection with Ecuador odd, given that Correa is labeled a persecutor of the media by journalism freedom groups.
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