President Obama’s infamous verdict on 21 April 2011 did not mean Julian Assange but Bradley Manning who allegedly provided the whistle-blower platform WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of largely embarrassing US American diplomatic cables, some even classified, and the notorious Collateral Murder video which apparently shows the massacre of civilians conducted by American soldiers from a helicopter in Iraq’s capital Baghdad in 2007.

While Manning has been detained in American military prisons since June 2010 waiting for his court martial trial, Australian citizen Assange, who is the founder of WikiLeaks and it’s public face, is on the run since November 2010 when a European Arrest Warrant was issued in the UK on claims by Swedish prosecution authorities that he had committed certain sexual offenses in Sweden in August 2010. What followed was Assange’s  remand, bail and unavailing extradition hearings, and more than 500 days house arrest. He understandably fears that once he arrives in Sweden for interrogation on the allegation (there is no official charge yet) he will immediately be transferred to the United States where a member of Congress has called for Espionage Act prosecution and some others his assassination.

Eventually, in June 2012, Assange sought shelter in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and requested political asylum. The decision on his application is still pending.

That the Ambassador now was informed threatened by the British Foreign Office that his Embassy will be stormed by police in order to get hold of Assange is unprecedented at least outside Iran and, well, pretty much concerning. The next hours will tell whether the Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa whom Assange had recently interviewed on in his show on Russia Today will finally buckle, the Embassy will be invaded by police or whatever.

August 16, 2012 @ 7:24

Last modified August 16, 2012.