Ecuador has granted Julian Assange asylum out of concern the Wikileaks founder will be politically persecuted if extradited.
The decision is a victory
for
Assange, who is trying to avoid being extradited to Sweden and has
been holed up inside Ecuador's embassy in London for nearly two months.
But the bad news for Assange is that British police have refused to grant him safe passage out of the country.
The British government
has pledged to send Assange to Sweden to face questioning on sex crimes
charges, but Ecuador's foreign minister says if Assange is sent to
Sweden, he could then be extradited to the United States to face charges
of espionage or treason.
Assange and his
supporters say a U.S. grand jury is weighing charges against him. U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the Justice Department has an
"active, ongoing criminal investigation" into the WikiLeaks disclosure
of classified U.S. diplomatic documents.
CNN: Can Assange leave London?
Paul Whiteway:
The fact Ecuador has granted political asylum to Assange doesn't
actually make any real difference. Clearly he is not in Ecuador, he is
in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and for the time being he is able
to remain there without being arrested. But he can't get to Ecuador
without leaving the embassy without being arrested, so in a sense, it's a
standoff.
Can Assange leave London?
CNN: Could Assange escape by car or by plane?
Whiteway:
It's very unlikely. The embassy only occupies a part of the building,
and is not a compound embassy, which has a car park inside it. Vehicles
belonging to the embassy enjoy a degree of immunity, so if it was a
compound embassy, he could get into the car, which could in theory take
him out of the building.
But at some point it
would have to stop, and he would have to get out of the car and into an
airplane, whereupon he would be arrested. But Ecuador's is not a
compound embassy, so as soon as he steps out the door he is liable to be
arrested.
Immunity would in theory
apply to an Ecuadorian airplane, but that plane would have to have
permission to land that the British government would not give. It's
really hard to see how that could work.
Also, that sort of
subterfuge would be regarded as such a blatant disregarding of the
convention on diplomatic relations that the bilateral relationship
between Britain and Ecuador would mean even further damage to Ecuador's
interests in the UK.
CNN: Is there anything British police can do?
Whiteway: All
they can do is wait and watch. In theory the foreign secretary could
make use of a 1987 act of Parliament to end to the inviolability of the
Ecuadorian embassy, but this would take authorities into a gray area.
Theoretically, this
legislation is to be invoked in cases connected to public safety,
national security, or town and country planning. Clearly Assange fits
into none of those categories, and it's unlikely the British police will
be going into the embassy anytime soon.
CNN: Is there a precedent for marching into another country's embassy?
Whiteway:
While authorities could theoretically test the 1987 law, I can't think
of any instance in this country where a government entered the premises
of a mission (embassy) without permission from the head of the mission.
The reasons for that are
clear: Britain doesn't want to have itself in a situation where foreign
governments can just march into its embassies overseas and arrest
people. Diplomatic relations are established on the basis of
reciprocity, and that is very important.
CNN: How have Britain and Ecuador handled the Assange issue?
Whiteway:
In Britain, I suspect that in the Foreign Office there may be a slight
sense of regret that they included a paragraph in their letter (to
Ecuador) about the 1987 law (informing officials they had the legal
wherewithal to enter the embassy and take Assange), because clearly it
stung the Ecuadorians in a way.
But I think it was
always going to be a long haul to get this issue resolved, given that
President Rafael Correa is quite sympathetic to what Julian Assange
stands for; given that he had already been on the record publicly saying
he was in favour of granting Assange asylum. It was always going to be
difficult for him to walk away from that without losing face.
CNN: Can Assange stay in the embassy forever?
Whiteway: I
don't think Mr. Assange is going to be going anywhere, let alone
Ecuador, for the time being. There was the case in Hungary of the bishop who sought refuge in the U.S. embassy for 15 years, so some cases can take literally years to resolve.
CNN: What will the atmosphere be like in the embassy?
Whiteway: I'm
sure they will have made him as comfortable as possible in the
circumstances as they possible can. But it's a big distraction from
their day job, and it's awkward having someone who's not on the
diplomatic staff actually inside your embassy for any length of time,
let alone for periods of months, so there is a price to pay from the
embassy's point of view.