Ecuador wants a third party to mediate the “untenable” situation surrounding WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange as he approaches his sixth year residing inside its embassy in London, the nation’s foreign minister told reporters Tuesday.
Quito is seeking a “third country or a personality” capable of potentially arranging Mr. Assange’s exit from the Ecuadoran Embassy, said Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s foreign minister, possibly paving the way for the Australian-born transparency activist to leave the facility for the first time since 2012.
“No solution will be achieved without international cooperation and the cooperation of the United Kingdom, which has also shown interest in seeking a way out,” said Ms. Espinosa, Agence France-Presse reported.
“A person cannot live forever in these conditions, and we are searching in a very respectful way with the United Kingdom … for a solution,” Ms. Espinosa said.
Mr. Assange, 46, entered Ecuador’s embassy in London in June 2012 in lieu of answering to an arrest warrant issued by Swedish authorities investigating allegations of sexual assault. He formally received asylum that August and has lived within the compound ever since as the result of being subject to what a United Nations working group previously defined as “arbitrary detention.”
Swedish prosecutors ultimately dropped their case against Mr. Assange in 2017, but British authorities have indicated he risks being arrested upon leaving the embassy on account of breaching previously imposed bailed condition by entering the facility in the first place.
Mr. Assange said he fears he’ll be apprehended if he leaves the embassy and subsequently extradited to the United States, where he risks being charged in connection with publishing state secrets through his WikiLeaks website.
“The government of Ecuador knows that the way to resolve this issue is for Julian Assange to leave the embassy to face justice,” a spokesperson for the U.K. government told The Guardian newspaper Tuesday.
“If the U.K. wishes to show that it is a nation that respects its human rights obligations and commitments to the United Nations, it is time for Mr. Assange to be allowed to enjoy his right to liberty, and fundamental right to protection against persecution in the United States,” an attorney for Mr. Assange said.
The U.S. Department of Justice began investigating WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange after the website began publishing classified State Department and Defense Department documents in 2010.
During his successful 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump praised WikiLeaks for publishing documents damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions has since stated that arresting Mr. Assange is a “priority” for his Justice Department.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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