LONDON – WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange has taken refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, seeking asylum in a long shot move that would see him trade the glare of an often-hostile British press for the comforts of a small Latin American nation governed by a friendly leader.

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said the leftist government of President Rafael Correa -- an administration often at odds with Washington -- was weighing the request. He did not indicate when a decision might be made.

Assange's legal options in the U.K. had almost completely run out. Less than a week ago Britain's Supreme Court re-endorsed its decision to allow the 40-year-old's extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted over sex crimes allegations. The accusations -- which stem from Assange's trip to the country in mid-2010 -- have cast a cloud over his online organization's spectacular leaks of U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence material.

Ecuador -- where less than one in three people have access to the Web -- may seem an unlikely place for the former computer hacker to seek refuge, but in many ways it's an obvious choice.

"It's one of the few countries that has given a great opening to Assange's entire cause," said Grace Jaramillo, an international relations professor at Ecuador's FLACSO university.

"Correa sees Assange as a critic of the status quo," he said. "He has been challenging the United States and Correa likes that."

Assange argues that extradition to Sweden is a first step in efforts to remove him to the United States, where he claims to have been secretly indicted over his disclosure of 250,000 State Department cables. He has spent the better part of two years fighting the move through the British courts.

But legal experts said Assange's flight to the Ecuadorean embassy was a desperate one.

U.K. extradition specialist Karen Todner said she couldn't make sense of the move, while Michael Scharf, based at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, said he didn't believe Assange could be given asylum status.

"I think they are going to end up asking him to leave the premises," said Scharf.

Ecuador's mission in London said in a statement that Assange would "remain at the embassy, under the protection of the Ecuadorian government," while his application was considered. Britain's foreign ministry said it was working with Ecuadorean authorities to resolve the situation, but gave few other details.

WikiLeaks confirmed its leader's request for political asylum on its Twitter account, but calls, texts and emails seeking further comment from Assange and other WikiLeaks members weren't immediately returned.

Patino, speaking at a news conference in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, gave the fullest account of Assange's reasoning, saying he had personally written to Correa to ask for asylum.

Assange, who is Australian, had argued that "the authorities in his country will not defend his minimum guarantees before any government or ignore the obligation to protect a politically persecuted citizen." Patino said. That may be a reference to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who last month said that her country could not protect Assange from other countries' justice systems.

Ecuador has made friendly noises about Assange in the past. In the November 2010, at the height of the media storm over WikiLeaks' disclosures, its government appeared to offer him sanctuary, and on Assange's newly-launched television talk show -- which interviewed Correa via videolink earlier this year -- the pair swapped jokes and messages of encouragement.

It was during the interview that Assange received an offer of asylum, according to a woman who was present during the shows and familiar with the offer. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media.

It was not immediately clear if the offer came directly from the president himself, although at one point Correa saluted WikiLeaks and told Assange to take courage.

"Welcome to the club of those who are persecuted!" said Correa, whose government has been assailed by human rights and press freedom activists for using Ecuador's criminal libel law in sympathetic courts against journalists from the country's biggest newspaper, El Universo.

Assange and his allies had been in discussions over a possible attempt to seek sanctuary in Ecuador since last weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter.

"His concern was that once he arrived in Sweden he would be held in custody and would not have a chance to seek sanctuary again," the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

The person said that Assange had explained his reasons for seeking sanctuary to the supporters who put up bail.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the escape to the Ecuadorian Embassy would invalidate Assange's strict bail conditions, or whether the 200,000 pounds (roughly $315,000) put up by his supporters would be forfeited.

British officials didn't immediately respond to requests for clarification late Tuesday. Assange's U.K. law firm declined comment.

It's also unclear how Assange could hope to get from the Ecuadorean Embassy, based in London's wealthy Knightsbridge neighborhood, to Ecuador itself.

The embassy's buzzer rang unanswered Tuesday, although at several points an unidentified figure peeked out from behind the curtain to look at reporters clustered around the building's entrance.

At one point two men emerged from the building; neither addressed the assembled media, but one bore a folio entitled "Diplomatic Law."

Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer representing the two Swedish women with claims against Assange, told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter late Tuesday that Assange's latest move was a delaying tactic.

"It's tragic for the two clients that I represent," he was quoted as saying. "I can't imagine that this will lead anywhere."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/19/ecuador-says-wikileaks-founder-seeking-asylum/?test=latestnews#ixzz1yJRv14gr

This a$$hole is a career criminal. He cost countless people their lives and endangered thousands more so he could make a political statement. I think the CIA needs to do what we pay them to do and make this problem go away.

what a Dork!

Desperate people do desperate things....

He'll probably get it as all he really is is a controlled opposition.

I think you're giving Julian too much credit....

Iran would be better

Yea, cause then we could take him out when we Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran!

putting him on the Sidelines for all these months worked quite well!

Am I? Note what has been released to date. Annoying, yes, but nothing devastating in terms of our government.

Oh and yea, he got it.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11874911

Extradition starts all over again.

Cool, so a sex offender and rapist gets a pass. Got it.

The CIA needs to do what we pay them to do.

Is this what we pay them to do? Really? Degrade us as a society? Kill people for corporate interests? Really? Import drugs and aid in the enslavement of Americans to a system that sold us out at least 4 decades ago?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSmBhj8tmoU

guess little Julian will start to swim soon now!

From the Telegraph ...

The WikiLeaks founder has spent the past two nights holed up in the South American country’s London embassy, in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes.
He will discover later today if Ecuador plans to grant him asylum.
But it is widely accepted he will still face arrest the minute he walks out of the Knightsbridge building, where police are waiting, as he has breached his bail conditions. He is meant to remain at a bail address in Tunbridge Wells between 10pm and 8am every night while his extradition appeals continue.
Mr Assange, a 40 year-old Australian, cannot be given diplomatic immunity by Ecuador as conferred on other embassy staff, because the Foreign Office would not approve the application.
And even if he were made an Ecuadorian citizen or granted asylum, he would still be liable to be arrested on departure from the embassy.
Speaking on the steps this morning, a policeman told reporters: “I am not aware of any agreements which would allow him safe passage out of the UK.”
Scotland Yard confirmed: “A successful asylum bid does not change the fact that he has breached his bail conditions.”
One legal expert, the former government lawyer Carl Gardner, suggested that Mr Assange could try becoming Ecuador’s representative to the United Nations as a way to escape the country.
He wrote on Twitter: “It's hard to think how Assange could leave the embassy, escape arrest and get on a plane. Except as Ecuador's new representative to the UN.
“If Ecuador & Assange tried my UN representative idea, I think it'd depend on his leaving the embassy to catch a flight to New York.”
He added to a follower: “I'm not saying I'm sure it'd work; it's just the only way I can think of.”
The Foreign Office declined to comment on the possible ways by which Mr Assange could evade arrest.
The maverick journalist and former computer hacker is responsible for the leaking of thousands of sensitive US diplomatic cables and military files, and fears he will be extradited to America by Sweden.
His bid for refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy surprised his high-profile supporters – including Jemima Khan, Ken Loach and Michael Moore – and they are likely to lose the total of £240,000 bail bond they put up for him when he was first arrested in 2010.
The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, is expected to give instructions on the WikiLeaks founder's application later on Thursday.
Overnight, the country's deputy foreign minister Marco Albuja told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: "We still can't make a final decision public yet until tomorrow.
"The national government is considering its position and the president will give us his instructions tomorrow."

They kill people for putting America and American interests at risk. That asshat put countless people at risk and even got US informants killed and made it to where our courrent and future sources were affraid to trust us with information because their names and information they gave us could be hacked by some sex offending lunatic.

That's not even touching his sex offense.

e

I was thinkiny thin that he can have all the immunity he wants but he has to make it to the country first. All though I thought I read somewhere that the diplomats vehicle is considered foreign soil as well.

Time will tell, but I'm thinking Julian's goose is cooked....

Here's a pretty good take on the situation...


Assange Will Likely Lose Asylum Bid, Go to Jail, Lawyers Say
By Erik Larson on June 20, 2012 Tweet Facebook LinkedIn Google Plus 1 Comment

Julian Assange, founder of the anti- secrecy website WikiLeaks, will probably lose his bid for asylum from Ecuador and end up in an English jail for breaking the terms of his bail during an extradition fight, U.K. lawyers say.

Ecuador will seek to protect its relationship with Britain and the European Union by rejecting Assange’s bid, said Peter Watson, a lawyer with Allen & Overy LLP in London who isn’t involved in the case. Assange will then be arrested, lose the bail money put up by his supporters and be jailed until he’s extradited to Sweden on rape claims, Watson said.

“Seeking political asylum following an open, public trial and an appeal to the highest court in the land is essentially saying the U.K. court system stinks,” Watson said. “That would be a very difficult position for Ecuador, because of the ramifications on its international relationships, not just with the U.K., but with Europe and the U.S.”

The claims against Assange, an Australian, became public around the same time he posted classified U.S. military and diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks website, creating controversy for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration. Assange denies the rape allegations and argues Sweden fabricated the arrest warrant to assist the U.S. in punishing him for the breach.

“My guess is they won’t follow through with it,” Dan Hyde, a lawyer at Cubism Law in London, said in an interview about Ecuador’s forthcoming decision. “But even if they did, I don’t see how, pragmatically, he is going leave this country -- he doesn’t have diplomatic immunity.”

‘How Long?’
Assange breached his bail by staying overnight at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought asylum yesterday, the Metropolitan Police Service said in an e-mailed statement. Assange has been required for the past 18 months to remain at his bail address from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

“How long can he be holed up in there?” Hyde said. “He can’t stay there forever.”

Nine friends and supporters of Assange, including journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger and celebrity Jemima Khan, may lose money they put up as part of the more than 200,000 pounds ($314,800) in guaranties posted as part of his bail conditions in December 2010.

Gareth Peirce, Assange’s lawyer in London, didn’t immediately return a call to her office today on the asylum bid.

Ecuador is studying the request and is in contact with the U.K. government, the Andean country’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters in a brief statement in Quito.

Wrist Slap
If Ecuador refuses his request, Assange will likely be arrested and go before a judge, Watson said. Assange would face penalties ranging from a “slap on the wrist” to being jailed pending extradition, he said.

Assange, first arrested in London in December 2010, lost his appeal to avoid extradition after the U.K. Supreme Court ruled May 30 that the arrest warrant had been issued properly by Sweden. Assange had argued the warrant was invalid because it was issued by a prosecutor instead of a judge.

Assange was considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights before he sought asylum. His latest move suggests he received legal advice that a challenge at the court in Strasbourg, France, would be “hopeless,” Watson said.

“It’s a rather curious thing to do, because he would have had protection from extradition while the appeal with the human- rights court was underway,” Watson said.

Assange is accused of failing to use a condom with one of the women and having sex with the other while she was asleep. The women, both supporters of WikiLeaks, let Assange stay at their homes during a speaking tour in Sweden in 2010. The U.K. Court of Appeal ruled in November that he should return to Sweden to face the allegations. He hasn’t been charged with a crime.

The asylum bid is a “delay” tactic that won’t prevent Assange from being sent to Sweden “sooner or later,” Claes Borgstrom, who represents the alleged victims, said in an e- mailed statement.

“I am not surprised that Assange once again is trying to stop the extradition, but I could never have guessed his method this time,” Borgstrom said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net

I hope they nail his a$$ to the wall.

start swimming Julian!
Its a long way to Ecuador!

I hope, after Sweden is finished with him, there is something left for the US to "spank"...