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Britain
Ecuador to Hand Over Julian Assange to British Authorities
2018-07-22
[PJ] Since 2012, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London trying to evade a warrant for his arrest from the Swedish government on sexual assault charges. The Ecuadorans granted him asylum because he said he feared being handed over to the American government for exposing millions of classified documents.

Apparently, Assange has overstayed his welcome. According to The Intercept, the new Ecuadoran president, Lenin Moreno, is prepared to transfer custody of Assange to the British.
A source close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the President’s office, unauthorized to speak publicly, has confirmed to the Intercept that Moreno is close to finalizing, if he has not already finalized, an agreement to hand over Assange to the UK within the next several weeks. The withdrawal of asylum and physical ejection of Assange could come as early as this week. On Friday, RT reported that Ecuador was preparing to enter into such an agreement.
The consequences of such an agreement depend in part on the concessions Ecuador extracts in exchange for withdrawing Assange’s asylum. But as former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told the Intercept in an interview in May, Moreno’s government has returned Ecuador to a highly "subservient" and "submissive" posture toward western governments.

It is thus highly unlikely that Moreno ‐ who has shown himself willing to submit to threats and coercion from the UK, Spain and the U.S. ‐ will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to the U.S., where top Trump officials have vowed to prosecute Assange and destroy WikiLeaks.

The central oddity of Assange’s case ‐ that he has been effectively imprisoned for eight years despite never having been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime ‐ is virtually certain to be prolonged once Ecuador hands him over to the U.K. Even under the best-case scenario, it appears highly likely that Assange will continue to be imprisoned by British authorities.
Swedish prosecutors dropped the sexual assault charges against Assange last year and he faces only a "failure to surrender" charge in Sweden. But the Trump administration would love to get their hands on Assange and make an example of him.
Posted by:Besoeker

#4  I expect to hear that he has walked into an open elevator shaft... Maybe the Embassy was the safest place on Earth for him after all of those diplomatic documents ended up on WikiLeaks.
Posted by: magpie   2018-07-22 21:02  

#3  If they release him, I see novichok in his future.
Posted by: JohnQC   2018-07-22 09:41  

#2  the Trump administration would love to get their hands on Assange and make an example of him

He's not been charged but has virtually been imprisoned for 8 years while Bradley Manning ran for the Senate.

Why would P.Trump want to get mired in either Obama issue?
Posted by: Skidmark   2018-07-22 06:26  

#1  No problem: Assange just told the Swedes he's a Syrian refugee. So naturally they dropped rape charges.
Herb wins Snark of the day
Posted by: Herb McCoy   2018-07-22 05:26  

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