Ecuador Working on Compromise for Julian Assange
By Erik Pineda | August 30, 2012 12:38 PM EST
Ecuador is working on a deal with Britain that would allow the latter to send WikiLeaks founder Julia Assange to Sweden without fears of being extradited to the United States, reports said.
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REUTERS
Ecuador is working on a deal with Britain that would allow the latter to send WikiLeaks founder Julia Assange to Sweden without fears of being extradited to the United States, reports said.
In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino expressed confidence that such an arrangement would be secured by Quito for Mr Assange, who has been under the diplomatic protection of Ecuador's embassy in London.
"I'm convinced we'll find a way out ... I'm hopeful because the global mood that the Julian Assange case is generating will help us to find a way out," Mr Patino told the news agency.
He issued the remarks in the aftermath of the diplomatic row that was sparked last week when London advised Quito that its local laws could support the forcible entry of British police officers into the premises of the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest the Australian whistleblower.
Mr Assange has been holed up inside the embassy since June this year following the exhaustion of all his legal options to prevent Britain from sending him to Sweden, where authorities want to interview him for alleged rape cases brought up by two former WikiLeaks volunteers.
Ecuador granted his asylum application earlier this month but the British government would not budge in giving him safe passage, insisting that it needs to fulfil its legal obligations with Sweden.
Mr Patino said it's next to impossible for Britain to change its mind on the Assange affair but he remains hopeful that London would at least give the Aussie citizen a guarantee that would ensure Mr Assange would not end up in another country.
Mr Assange has maintained that Sweden would eventually send him to the U.S., where some politicians want him to face charges of espionage and sedition, which could merit him life imprisonment or the death penalty.
He believes he is under persecution when his anti-secrecy website published confidential documents of the U.S. government from 2010 through 2011, which largely embarrassed Washington.
U.S. authorities, however, were consistent in denying that Mr Assange is a target for extradition by the American government, adding that no charges were forthcoming against the former computer hacker.
Yet Ecuador believes otherwise as its president, Rafael Correa, is convinced that Washington will want to see Mr Assange punished for his acts.
It was the main reason he approved the asylum application of the Australian, Mr Correa said earlier.
But the same protection from Ecuador will not be accepted by Mr Assange as soon as he gets the assurance that Swedish authorities will not deliver him to the Americans, the president added.
According to Mr Correa, Mr Assange is all willing to fly to Sweden provided that gets hold of written guarantees from both London and Stockholm.
Ecuador said the whole episode should conclude well if "Great Britain could seek to move forward with the guarantees, because they have repeatedly said that they don't want to provide the safe-passage."
"The option of the guarantees is possibly more feasible ... We should get clear, written guarantees from the countries with which we're negotiating," Mr Patino told Reuters.
It is understood that Britain and Ecuador had already discussed the matter when British Foreign Minister William Hague met earlier with Ecuador's vice president, Lenin Moreno, which Reuters said was confirmed both by London and Quito.
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Big thank you to Chandravaki 
