Julian Assange granted asylum in Ecuador...

[NOX]

Julian Assange has just been granted asylum in Ecuador... so what do we think and how are they going to get him out of the UK?

[ichkeria]

What I think is that he's a probable sex offender trying to escape justice by playing up to the fact that he's 'wanted' in the US. The US should drop their idiotic pursuit of him and let proper justice take its course.

[emmie]

i don't think he is a sex offender, the women seemed to have rather taken a shine to Mr Assange, if you read the story. However what on earth is he going to do in Ecuador. Perhaps the same way they get people in, on the back of a lorry

[baza]

smuggle him out in a diplomatic bag

[emmie]

nice way to describe one of the staff. x

[ichkeria]

'read the story'? Whose story? :-)
Anyway he'll only go to Ecuador if he can continue to live in the manner to which he has been accustomed. There's no reason why he couldn't carry on as before. All he needs is a computer and a microphone for his other business. I'd even consider ccontributing to the fare just to get rud of him! Everything about the bloke smells of fraud. He was so obviously bought off by the Russians who signed him up for a series of embarrassing 'interviews' on their propaganda channel

[jake-the-peg]

Sounds like ichkeria is one of the people who've decided Assange's guilt on sex charges based on his actions behind a keyboard!

[beckersjay]

I don't quite know why but Assange gives me the creeps - perhaps it's the 'dead' eyes.

[FredPuli43]

We could be mischievous and have him arrested as soon as he sets foot outside the Embassy. Ecuadorian writ does not run in Europe. Who cares what the President of Ecuador thinks? His country is hardly significant.

It's a country that is so weak financially that for years the only official currency has been the US dollar, the sucre having been abolished.It is literally a 'banana republic', that being its main crop and export. Nice place. Doesn't seem any bigger than Wales, with pleasant , quiet, people,and plenty to see; rainforest, volcanoes, owns the Galapagos; but Assange must be desperate if he wants to live there for the rest of his life.He's probably sold them some idea that he'll be executed if he goes to the States !

[ichkeria]

The thing is I couldn't give a s***t about Assange's activities behind a keyboard. As far as I'm concerned he's got very little if anything to answer for in that regard. That's why I say IF he's offended in any way it's more likely for reasons he'd rather we kept quiet about - ironically :-)

[BayBoy1]

sounds like the Ronnie Biggs story.

[Quizmonster]

I do hope we - the UK - do not allow him safe passage to Heathrow, but rather that he is arrested the instant he sets foot outside his bolt-hole and put on the next flight to Stockholm...no more judicial 'hearings' in this country.
Thereafter, I also sincerely hope that the USA have a watertight case to present to the Swedes for his further extradition to America.

[ichkeria]

Quizmonster I rather hope not in the latter case. I can't see what he's done wrong other than his alleged offences in Sweden. The US are just making a martyr out of a self-serving creep.

[FredPuli43]

Self-serving creep he may be, but one who has assisted a soldier in making public vast numbers of classified documents which may affect the safety of a country and, in any event, are documents which were secret for reasons of diplomacy. That might just be an offence in this country! Such rules are necessary, just as the rules about privileged and 'without prejudice' correspondence are necessary at a lower level.

[Quizmonster]

Ichkeria, I dont quite see how the USA are "making a martyr" out of him, but rather feel that he and his misguided supporters are desperately trying to convince us all that he will be one if called to account there!
Fred, I totally agree with your point, but evidence may show that - rather than just "assist" a soldier in the commission of a manifest military crime - Assange "suborned" him into doing so.

[NOX]

That the UK will lose face is a foregone conclusion- so best they do just offer free passage to leave the country, although I doubt they will. Sweden were irrational and obstructive in their handling of things initially. If they genuinely wanted to help the women they considered to be victims then they could have taken any number of measures to see if there was sufficient evidence for their to be a case to answer, they declined all offers of interviewing Julian Assange and were hellbent on him going to Sweden, which clearly he would not be prepared to do because of the danger of him being extradited to the US.
I'm very pleased this has happened, it's about time someone showed the US it cannot have whatever it likes whenever it likes and that it is not above the power of other people's opinions.

[FredPuli43]

Why was Ecuador, a country with which Assange has no connection, and which he may never have visited, the one 'to show America that it cannot do what it likes' ? Could be that the President has his own political reasons. Making a gesture against the US is usually a vote winner in South America. So does making a stance, however false, for freedom of speech. It would be no surprise that the President is hoping to be reelected.
But, of course, it's nice for Assange's supporters to believe that asylum was offered for pure and humanitarian reasons and not as a totally insincere political act

[NOX]

If you say so Fred;-)

[emmie]

does he actually have supporters? - too many people are whisked out of Britain on the say so of our American cousins, and yet we can't get rid of their miscreants for love nor money.

[ichkeria]

Yes I agree that those documents should not have been released but he was a minor player in that. He's not even American so it's not the moral and legal issue that faces Bradley Manning

[ichkeria]

Fred you're almost certainly right about the motivation of Ecuadoe of course.