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."

Comments

Re:It's a TRAP!

[TWX]

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.

Re:It's a TRAP!

[Applehu Akbar]

This hypothesis needs to be tested using an Assange look-alike.

Re:18 million for someone that was NEVER Charged?!

[AK Marc]

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?