Police in London will no longer physically monitor the embassy of Ecuador in the British capital, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been living for over two years, fighting against extradition to Sweden. Assange was granted political asylum by the government of Ecuador in June of 2012, after Swedish authorities charged him with rape. But the Australian-born Assange claims that the charges are part of a plot to extradite him to the United States, where he is wanted for having leaked hundreds of thousands of documents belonging to the Department of Defense and the Department of State.
Acting on a request from the Swedish
government, London’s Metropolitan Police Service, known informally as
Scotland Yard, has been patrolling the streets around the embassy 24
hours a day, in order to prevent Assange from being smuggled
out of the building by Ecuadorean officials. Standard diplomatic
protocol prevents British authorities from entering the embassy, which
is technically considered Ecuadorean territory.
On Monday, however, the Metropolitan Police said
they would cease their 24/7 patrols around the Ecuadorean embassy,
which is located in London’s fashionable Knightsbridge district.
According to a police official, constant physical surveillance of the
embassy was “no longer proportional” to Assange’s charges, which meant
that Scotland Yard would be unable to continue “to commit officers to a
permanent presence”. The official said that the decision had been taken
after consultation with the British Home Office, and that the reasons
for the change in policy were primarily financial. According to reports
by the British government, the intensive monitoring of the Ecuadorean
embassy has cost the British taxpayer in excess of £11 million, which
amounts to nearly $18 million. The resulting strain on policing
resources has prompted some British politicians to dismiss Scotland
Yard’s operation as a misuse of taxpayer funds.
http://intelnews.org/2015/10/14/01-1793/
No comments:
Post a Comment