Wikileaks boss Julian Assange to leave London’s Ecuadorean embassy “soon”

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Wikileaks co-founder Julian AssangeWikileaks co-founder Julian Assange has indicated on Monday that he will be leaving London’s Ecuadorean embassy “soon” while the organisation’s spokesperson has told he would not depart until reaching an agreement with British government.

During an address in a press conference inside the diplomatic mission with Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino today, Assange, 43, had mentioned that his health had suffered during two years of refuge at the Ecaudore embassy in London, as anyone would suffer after spending two years in a building with no outside space or direct sunlight access.

Mr Assange has told the press: “I am leaving the embassy soon”.

He has announced: “It’s an environment in which any healthy person would find themselves soon enough with certain difficulties they would have to manage.”

While Mr Assange’s spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson has also revealed later that the Australian had no intention to hand himself over to the police waiting outside the embassy in central London.

Mr Hrafnsson has said that Assange could leave the building only if the British government “calls off the siege outside”.

Mr Assange had taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy since June 2012, after the Latin American nation had granted him the diplomatic asylum.

Mr Patino has also told later he’d try and set up a meeting with the new UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in the coming weeks to discuss the issue.

The Ecuadorean minister has said: “We believe that the recent reforms do create a better climate for us to reach an agreement.

“The situation must come to an end. It is time to free Julian Assange. It is time for his human rights to finally be respected.”

Mr Assange had told Mr Patino a year ago that he was strong enough to remain in the embassy for five years rather than face legal proceedings in the U.S.

It has been estimated that the cost of British police maintaining a 24-hour watch outside the embassy has passed above STG7 million ($A12.8 million).

The UK Foreign Office later made clear that despite an urge to reach a diplomatic solution, if Assange left the embassy he would be arrested.

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