The President of Ecuador is still considering the asylum request of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, despite a media report that he has already decided to grant the application.
Assange has been residing at Ecuador’s London embassy for eight weeks after he officially requested political asylum on 19 June.
Assange fled to the embassy after he lost his final plea to avoid extradition from the UK to Sweden, where he currently faces allegations of raping a woman and sexually molesting and coercing another in Stockholm in August 2010.
He claims the sex was consensual and that the accusations against him are politically motivated. Assange has not been charged in Sweden, but is wanted for questioning.
The newspaper cited an unnamed government official in the Ecuadorian capital, saying the decision had already been made.
“Ecuador will grant asylum to Julian Assange,” the official in the Ecuadorean capital, Quito, who is familiar with the government discussions, was reported as saying.
“We see Assange’s request as a humanitarian issue,” said the source. “The contact between the Ecuadorean government and WikiLeaks goes back to May 2011, when we became the first country to see the leaked US embassy cables completely declassified … It is clear that when Julian entered the embassy there was already some sort of deal. We see in his work a parallel with our struggle for national sovereignty and the democratisation of international relations.”
However, within hours of the Guardian article, President of Ecuador Rafael Correa took to Twitter to deny the report that his government has already decided to grant asylum to Julian Assange. He said it was a “false rumour”.
“Rumour of asylum for Assange is false. There is still no decision on the subject. I await report from [Ecuadorian] foreign office,” he tweeted.
Correa had previously said he would make a decision on the matter this week.
Whether Ecuador decides to grant the asylum request may not save the Wikileaks founder, considering that Assange faces arrest as soon as he leaves the embassy because he has breached his bail conditions.
How much do you know about online piracy? Try our quiz!
Boeing's crewless space taxi, CST-100 Starliner, one step closer to NASA certification, as it enters…
Staff at Apple's World Trade Centre store in New York are allegedly being questioned and…
Making it official. Canada is to turn its unofficial ban on 5G kit from Huawei…
Potentially risking Elon's wrath over free speech, Twitter says it will hide tweets spreading misinformation…
Third time the charm? Main rival to SpaceX's Dragon capsule, the embattled Boeing Starliner spacecraft,…
No surprise there. Apple is slated to launch the iPhone 14 on 13 September according…