Intro: "Ecuador has asked the British Foreign Office if Julian Assange could be sent to trial in Sweden while remaining under its protection."

Ecuador says there are several ways to resolve the Julian Assange standoff with Britain. (photo: Sang Tan Source/AP)

Ecuador Proposes Assange Compromise

By Agence France Presse

24 September 12

Ecuador has asked the British Foreign Office if Julian Assange could be sent to trial in Sweden while remaining under its protection.

cuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, said on Saturday he was weighing such a transfer as a possible alternative for Assange to "remain under our protection while also satisfying the demands of the Swedish justice system".

Britain's Foreign Office is tightlipped over the proposal.

Assange, the Australian founder of Wikileaks, took shelter in the Ecuadoran embassy in London in June after exhausting all appeals against extradition from Britain to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations.

Ecuador has granted him diplomatic asylum.

Patino hinted about "new" developments in the Swedish case, saying "several elements of proof have been dismissed," though he declined to provide further details.

In a sign diplomatic moves are afoot in the Assange case, Patino said he planned to discuss the issue with his British counterpart William Hague on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.

In London, the Foreign Office refused to be drawn on the Ecuadoran proposal. A spokesman said: "We've made our position very clear on Mr Assange, mainly that he has exhausted the option of appeal and we are under a binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden and we have to carry out this obligation and we fully intend to do so."

Assange fears Sweden will hand him over to the United States, where he could face prosecution over the release of a vast cache of leaked Iraq and Afghanistan war reports and diplomatic cables.

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+17 # Michael_K 2012-09-24 08:51

Considering that a Swedish forensics lab has determined that the accusers have submitted false evidence against Assange, it seems more likely than ever that the Swedes are acting as minions of the US govefnment.

Not dismissing the case, and all collateral a tions, warrants, extradifions, etc. is pretty much an admission of guilt by the Swedish judicial system.

+13 # reiverpacific 2012-09-24 09:02

"Rule Britannia, Britannia waives the rules"!
I wouldn't trust Hague mate.
Blair to the Tower!

+12 # davidiste 2012-09-24 12:45

If this was 1974 I'd say Assange could rely on the diplomatic protection of a nations embassy as an extension of that government for safe protection. But we have seen for a long time now how the nations who supposedly hold their legal system to the highest standards are willing to alter them and rationalize it without hardly bothering to explain themselves. They would take Assange and grab him at the London Airport, or anywhere else, and assert a preceding claim which until now none of us knew about. But ultimately if he comes to the US for trial, it will cause so much more turmoil then it's worth. A major disappointment in the current administration.

+4 # RMDC 2012-09-25 02:37

Assange has always been reasonable about this case. It is the Swedes who are not reasonable.

I'm glad to see that Ecuador is keeping this issue in the news. We should not be allowed to forget about it. Assange is pretty much in a prison now, surrounded by British police and unable to speak or move at will. I hope that Ecuador will make an offer a week until it becomes so obvious that the fascists in the US are manipulating both sweden and the US that there is an outcry in the whole rest of the world. Not that the US would ever respond to that, however.

0 # Granny Weatherwax 2012-09-26 05:50

Assange RIGHTFULLY fears Sweden will hand him over to the US,...

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