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British Police Stop 24/7 Monitoring of Julian Assange At Ecuadorian Embassy (ibtimes.co.uk)
Ewan Palmer writes with news that police are no longer guarding the Ecuadorian Embassy where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been taking refuge for the past three years. According to IBTImes: "London police has announced it will remove the dedicated officers who have guarded the Ecuadorian Embassy 24 hours a day, seven days a week while WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seeks asylum inside. The 44-year-old has been holed up inside the building since 2012 in a bid to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. He believes that once he is in Sweden, he will be extradited again to the US where he could face espionage charges following the leaking of thousands of classified documents on his WikiLeaks website. Police has now decided to withdraw the physical presence of officers from outside the embassy as it is 'no longer proportionate to commit officers to a permanent presence'. It is estimated the cost of deploying the officers outside the Embassy in London all day for the past three years has cost the British taxpayer more than $18m."
Honestly, if any entity literally ran out of money and could no longer afford an enforcement action and simply stopped for budgetary reasons similar to Lucas' first movie THX1138, I would expect it would be the British.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This hypothesis needs to be tested using an Assange look-alike.
Also your sig doesn't match with the sentiment your expressing.
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And as a gesture of goodwill, they've also left him a large wooden horse with a bow tied around it outside the embassy.
At least the British still have a degree of respect for the diplomatic status of embassies even if they have a hard time being civilised about it. If Edward Snowden had sought shelter in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Washington it would probably have stood an excellent chance of been stormed by delta forces inside of 24 hours. I thought that the US Govt. showed uncharacteristic restraint when they made do with convincing France and Spain into refusing Evo Morales' jet entry and thus forced it to land in Austria. I was expecting them to simply send fighters to intercept the plane over the Atlantic and forcing it to land on some US airbase. I'd like to know just how close Obama and his administration came to actually going ahead and doing that.
He refused the interview by having it, being cleared, leaving, then being re-charged for what he was already charged and dismissed for. Double jeopardy at its finest, though that's OK in most places.
The delay in the charges was sufficient to indicate US interference in the case.
Sweden has remotely interviewed others in similar circumstances, yet refuses to do so here? Why?
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There are no sexual assault charges. Assange is not formally charged with anything at all. He has repeatedly asked the Swedish authorities to come question him at the Equadorian embassy with regard to as-yet completely unjustified allegations from years ago. The Swedish authorities, against all reason and without explanation, have refused to come question him. Why do you think that might be? -PCP