Officials in Ecuador have granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange citizenship after five years of living in the country’s London embassy.
Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa said Ecuador had accepted Assange’s request made in December to become a citizen, arguing that citizenship would “provide the asylum seeker another layer of protection.”
“No solution will be achieved without international co-operation and the co-operation of the United Kingdom, which has also shown interest in seeking a way out,” she continued.
Ecuador granted Assange, whose organization WikiLeaks has published millions of classified government documents, political asylum in 2012 in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden over a rape claim. Assange’s activities exposing classified American documents may have led to further extradition to the United States, some speculated at the time. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Hey, That's no way to Tweet if you want an extradition deal to be approved so you can retire in Maui. 🙂 … All the best … @wikileaks https://t.co/vP1yhr7Ics
— Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) June 19, 2017
Ecuador’s foreign minister says the country is seeking possible mediation to resolve the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been in asylum at its London embassy for more than five years.
Maria Fernanda Espinosa said at a news conference on Tuesday that notable asylum cases in recent years have sometimes required mediation by a third country.
Assange has been at the embassy since June 2012 to avoid a Swedish extradition request on a case of alleged rape. While Sweden has at least temporarily dropped that investigation, British officials say they’d still arrest him on charges of bail jumping. Assange also fears a possible U.S. extradition request stemming from the leaking of classified U.S. documents. – READ MORE
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