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THE ECUADORIAN GOVERNMENT will allow Swedish officials to interview Julian Assange at its embassy in London.
Assange has been sheltering at the Ecuadorian embassy since June 2012. He has been sought by various jurisdictions for leaking controversial documents through the organisation WikiLeaks, which he founded.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said a letter has been sent by the Ecuadorian government to set up a meeting with Swedish officials at Quito’s embassy in London.
The meeting is to take place “in the coming weeks”, the statement said.
Prosecutors in Sweden want to interview Assange in connection a 2010 rape allegation against him.
The 45-year-old Australian sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in June 2012 after exhausting all his legal options in Britain against extradition to Sweden.
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Supporters of Julian Assange are seen outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. John Stillwell / Press Association
John Stillwell / Press Association / Press Association
Assange fears that if he were sent to Sweden to face trial, he could be extradited to the United States to be tried over WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents and face a long prison sentence or the death penalty.
The documents that WikiLeaks have released in the past range from controversial footage of the Iraq War, to the recent cache of emails from Democratic National Committee, which hinted that the party tried to ‘sabotage’ Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.
WikiLeaks claims to be a “an international non-profit journalistic organisation”, although organisations such as the New York Times, which have liaised with the organisation in the past, have repeatedly cast doubt over their motives.
Assange yesterday appealed a Stockholm district court’s decision to maintain a European arrest warrant against him over the rape allegation.
“We have appealed the decision to keep him remanded in custody in absentia,” his attorney Tomas Olsson told AFP.
Assange’s lawyers have said that is why he refuses to travel to Sweden to be questioned by prosecutors.
A UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on February 5 ruled in a non-binding decision that Assange’s confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy amounted to arbitrary detention by Sweden and Britain.
Both Britain and Sweden have angrily disputed the UN group’s findings.
I was under the impression that it is not being downgraded to a fine. If your over 80mg you still have to go to court and charged criminally. Currently if your under 80mg you walk whereas the new law wont let those bearly under off the hook so likely i.e the fine and penalty points. As far as I am aware the fine only applies to first time offence as well, if your caught over 50 a 2nd time you go to court. So in effect the laws are being made stricter ? Correct me if I have this wrong.
is being over the limit classified as being drunk. or is it only a name or level of intoxication when your driving, being labelled drunk carries a negative aspect to having a social drink. I’m all for reduced alcohol blood limits when it comes to driving. just wondering on the naming terms
The problem with this is of course, that it is impossible to ‘know’ if a person is over the limit. The figure could be a lot more. Very few people are actually aware of the quantity of alcohol that would set them over the legal limit. It is more often less that they expect.
No wonder drink related accidents are so high. If in an accident the driver has zero alcohol only the passenger in the back seat is over the limit that accident is classed as being “drink related” if a pedestrian over limit is tipped by a car through his or her own fault it is drink related.
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