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
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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Not dismissing the case, and all collateral a tions, warrants, extradifions, etc. is pretty much an admission of guilt by the Swedish judicial system.
I wouldn't trust Hague mate.
Blair to the Tower!
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.
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