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£10,500 (or US$16,000) is a lot of money, especially if that much is spent every single day for the last 960 days, to prevent WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange from leaving the Ecuadorian Embassy. The money has been spent on police to guard the embassy 24/7, not in case of an attack or any terrorist threat, but incase Mr Assange should dare leave and step back into UK territory.
Assange has not been charged with a crime as of yet, but the reason he is stuck in the embassy is to attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden over an allegation of rape. He claims that these charges are fabricated in order to get him to Sweden so that he can then easily be extradited to the US, for questioning about WikiLeaks releases of US classified diplomatic documents.
Towards the end of last year Mr Assange said that, “The greatest concern for me is the intelligence gathering that the British police are doing on my visitors to the embassy, aggressively demanding their names and identity details”, “Obviously, as an investigative journalist dealing with sensitive documents and with staff under threat, that creates difficulties for me and my ongoing position.”
The UK has unfortunately gone as far as bugging the Ecuadorian embassy and stating in a police document, that was photographed by the British Press Association, “Action required, Assange to be arrested under all circumstances”. They even stated that he should be arrested if he comes out with diplomatic immunity, which goes against the international Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Assange has published a full affidavit while he has been holed up in the embassy which you can read here (fair warning, it is long and detailed).
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: It seems pretty shocking that Assange has been basically imprisoned in the embassy for almost 1000 days. Then again there are some pretty powerful countries that want to bring Assange to justice, for the documents his organization has released.
Source: LBC
Image credit: Darren Pauli
What a waste of money…
I’m surprised the Ecuadorians have kept him this long. I get bored of house guests after no more than a week lol
Why are they spending so much to put an entire crew of cops outside? Why not just get two policemen to wait outside the door for if he comes out?
UK gov going above and beyond to harass someone at tax payers expense. Bit of a joke really so no wonder young people don’t give a shit about politics these days.
Not that I am for the whole affair. Given the nature of SOME (not all by a long shot) folks who support him and have a twisted idea of the wikileaks ideology, there is a very real and feasible fear of violent attempts to free him. If they did put only 2 folks on each door imagine the backlash when those poor men get swamped/killed/badly assaulted from the media or indeed your average citizen. Police are essential, putting their lives at risk for no reason is not the kind of country I would like to live in.
It’s an awful political clusterfuck, I’m just glad I don’t have to be someone in power having to deal with this situation.
Let him get away, deal with making one of our countries main benefactors economically, outraged at us. If you stand back far enough, 10 million across 2.5 years keeps the Americans on our side, showing we are actively attempting to help them, whilst also not storming the Ecuadorian embassy and completely sullying our name internationally is probably seen as the best way to sit on the fence.
Young folk do give a shit about politics these days, in fact far more of them make their own decisions rather than simply inheriting them from their parents.
Most definitely not a waste of money-but has to be relative.
With the health system desperate for funding-and schools being
closed thru lack of funds-Could that money be better used??????????