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Raisethefist.com: What's next for Assange's extradition battle?
What's next for Assange's extradition battle?
by anonymous Sat Aug 18 22:52:30 PDT 2012
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Ecuador has granted Julian Assange asylum out of concern the Wikileaks founder will be politically persecuted if extradited.
The decision is a victory for Assange, who is trying to avoid being extradited to Sweden and has been holed up inside Ecuador's embassy in London for nearly two months.
But the bad news for Assange is that British police have refused to grant him safe passage out of the country.
The British government has pledged to send Assange to Sweden to face questioning on sex crimes charges, but Ecuador's foreign minister says if Assange is sent to Sweden, he could then be extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage or treason.
More: Ecuador grants Assange asylum
Assange and his supporters say a U.S. grand jury is weighing charges against him. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the Justice Department has an "active, ongoing criminal investigation" into the WikiLeaks disclosure of classified U.S. diplomatic documents.
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Standoff at Ecuador embassy over Assange
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Can Assange leave London?
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101: WikiLeaks revealed
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Assange granted asylum in Ecuador
CNN spoke to Paul Whiteway, an ex-British diplomat of more than 30 years and now director of the Independent Diplomat advisory group in London, about where the Assange situation is heading.
CNN: Can Assange leave London?
Paul Whiteway: The fact Ecuador has granted political asylum to Assange doesn't actually make any real difference. Clearly he is not in Ecuador, he is in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and for the time being he is able to remain there without being arrested. But he can't get to Ecuador without leaving the embassy without being arrested, so in a sense, it's a standoff.
CNN: Could Assange escape by car or by plane?
Whiteway: It's very unlikely. The embassy only occupies a part of the building, and is not a compound embassy, which has a car park inside it. Vehicles belonging to the embassy enjoy a degree of immunity, so if it was a compound embassy, he could get into the car, which could in theory take him out of the building.
But at some point it would have to stop, and he would have to get out of the car and into an airplane, whereupon he would be arrested. But Ecuador's is not a compound embassy, so as soon as he steps out the door he is liable to be arrested.
More: Of all countries, why choose Ecuador?
Immunity would in theory apply to an Ecuadorian airplane, but that plane would have to have permission to land that the British government would not give. It's really hard to see how that could work.
Also, that sort of subterfuge would be regarded as such a blatant disregarding of the convention on diplomatic relations that the bilateral relationship between Britain and Ecuador would mean even further damage to Ecuador's interests in the UK.
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