Ecuador president says Julian Assange can stay in London embassy indefinitely

Assange held a speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy on Sunday

 Assange can remain hidden in London ‘indefinitely’, Ecuador’s president said yesterday – leaving British taxpayers to foot the policing bill.

Police have watched the Ecuadorian embassy round-the-clock since the WikiLeaks founder was granted asylum last week, at a cost of up to £50,000 a day.
Assange, 41, has been living in the embassy in Knightsbridge, West London, for more than two months since he walked in and asked for asylum in June, and Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa said he was welcome to stay indefinitely.
His comments leave British taxpayers facing an open-ended bill for policing the embassy as it would be hugely embarrassing for the Government if Assange slipped out undetected.
The former computer hacker is wanted in Sweden to answer rape and sexual assault accusations and Britain has vowed that he will be arrested and extradited if he steps foot outside the embassy.
Mr Correa said Assange should be allowed to leave and fly to Ecuador.
Assange denies the sex accusations but claims he cannot defend himself in Sweden because of fears he will be extradited from Scandinavia to the US over WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of secret diplomatic cables in 2010.
Mr Correa said: ‘Since Mr Assange has received asylum from the Ecuadorian state, he can stay in the embassy indefinitely.’ Ecuador was ready to negotiate if Britain withdrew its ‘threat’ against his country’s London outpost, he added.
Ecuador reacted with fury after the Foreign Office said the embassy’s diplomatic status could be rescinded, potentially allowing police to storm the building.
Mr Correa said: ‘Despite that rude, impertinent and unacceptable remark, we’re still open to dialogue.
'We don't expect an apology, but of course we expect Britain to retract the extremely serious mistake they made when they issued the threat that they could violate our diplomatic mission to arrest Mr. Julian Assange.'
Ecuador has said it might take the dispute over Assange to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
It was also reported that the previous ‘barren’ conditions of Julian Assange’s room has been updated with a treadmill, a microwave and a shower.
Correa's government says there have been no talks with Britain or Sweden since August 15.
The WikiLeaks founder is wanted in Sweden to face rape and sexual assault charges, and Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled he should be extradited.

Rafael Correa, Ecuadorian President

But the 41-year-old Australian broke his bail conditions to claim asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in June and has remained inside the mansion block for more than two months.
Britain has vowed to arrest him if he steps outside but cannot send police into the embassy under the terms of the Vienna Convention.
Dozens of British police officers have surrounded the building for days to ensure he is not smuggled out and Foreign Secretary William Hague has made it clear he will not be allowed safe passage out of the country leaving Britain in a diplomatic stand-off with Ecuador.
Foreign ministers from across Latin America broadly backed Quito's position as the government rallied regional support at a series of high-level meetings in Ecuador over the weekend.
Correa says he shared Assange's fears that from Sweden he could be further extradited to the United States and used his speech yesterday to portray the dispute as a David and Goliath-esque battle between a small country and ‘imperialist powers' of the United States and Britain.
Local analysts in Ecuador say that playing up the ‘colonial’ angle helps burnish Correa's anti-U.S. credentials and could lift his ratings. It also plays well with his ally Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez, the biggest critic of Washington in the region.
Correa, a 49-year-old economist, has become popular with many Ecuadoreans by building hospitals and schools, and for programs of cash handouts for the poor. He is well placed to win re-election next year if - as widely expected - he runs.
Correa said Ecuador never intended to stop Assange from facing justice in Sweden.
‘What we've asked for is guarantees that he won't be extradited to a third country," he said.
The Ecuadorean leader also said his nation had to improvise to provide Assange with as many home comforts as possible at the diplomatic mission in London's affluent Knightsbridge area, including a bed, microwave, shower and treadmill for jogging.
‘Since Mr. Assange has received asylum from the Ecuadorean state, he can stay in the embassy indefinitely,’ Correa said.
Since taking office in 2007, Correa has often sparred with journalists whom he accuses of trying to undermine his rule. Critics in the media accuse him of muzzling them and behaving like an autocrat.
Earlier this year he won a libel case against three newspaper publishers and a columnist for an article that called him a dictator and alleged he had ordered troops to fire on civilians during a protest. He later pardoned them.
‘I wonder what would England do if a journalist, with the permission and complicity of a newspaper, accused the Queen of a genocide?,’ Correa said when asked about accusations that he has used the courts to silence media critics.
He added that in his domestic disputes with journalists he had only ever been standing up to unscrupulous media bosses.
‘We face up to (the likes of) Murdoch in the United Kingdom, who thought that they were above the law until a government came along to implement the law for all,’ Correa said, referring to the Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch's British newspaper arm is under investigation for illegally tapping the voice mails of celebrities, sports stars and politicians. There have been more than 60 arrests, including dozens of current and former journalist.
Meanwhile, Respect MP George Galloway has been sacked as a magazine columnist for saying the rape accusation against Assange amounted to no more than bad ‘sexual etiquette’.
Mandy Rhodes, editor of Holyrood, said: ‘His recent outpourings about definitions of rape have left me gobsmacked.’