[ad_1]
A judge ruled on Monday against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, rejecting his request to relax the new requirements purporting to push him to leave his asylum at the Ecuadorian Embbady in London.
Judge Karina Martinez ruled that the Embbady of South America had recently imposed stricter rules, such as forcing Assange to pay for his internet access and to clean up his cat's content, without violating his rights to asylum allowed inside the building.
Ecuadorian officials welcomed the recent decision made by the Australian hacker and the government that has been protecting him for six years. Relations between Assange and Ecuador grew more and more tense as the years went by, with no solution in sight.
Assange's lawyer has vowed to appeal the decision. "The Ecuadorian state has international responsibility to protect Mr. Assange," said lawyer Carlos Poveda.
Assange argued that the new measures making it harder to welcome visitors and obliging him to pay for services such as laundry fees and medical bills are intended to force him to end his asylum.
The rules also state that if Assange does not feed and care for his cat, the animal could be sent to the pound.
The Government of Ecuador baderted that the requirements were for peaceful cohabitation in small premises of the small embbady, where Assange occupies more than a third of the space. Officials complained that his football and skateboard games damaged the building.
"It is clear that this protocol was issued in strict compliance with international law," said after the decision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, Jose Valencia.
In 2012, Ecuador granted asylum to Assange at the embbady while he was trying to avoid extradition to Sweden. The Swedish supreme prosecutor subsequently dropped a lengthy investigation into an allegation of rape against him, claiming that there was no way to detain or charge him because of his protected status within the embbady.
Nevertheless, Assange is still wanted in Britain for stealing on bail, and he also fears a possible extradition of the United States on the basis of his leak of clbadified documents from the state department.
Assange initially had an intimate relationship with the then President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, but relations with his host country gradually deteriorated. The current president, Lenin Moreno, warned him not to interfere with issues that could jeopardize Ecuador's external relations.
Source link
