Assange has been holed up in the tiny Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 2012, a fugitive from arrest on allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden. He fled to the embassy after exhausting all legal avenues in Britain to avoid extradition to Sweden, which he fears will send him on to the United States to be tried for publishing a massive trove of classified diplomatic and military files.
Advertisement
The British government has spent more than $19 million over the last three years trying to make sure that Assange, founder of the website WikiLeaks, doesn’t escape its clutches.
The doctor said that an MRI scan needs to be performed which can only be carried out in a hospital.
“We have been talking with Sweden and hope to soon have an global penal assistance agreement”, Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said in a televised interview. It said that the Foreign Office had replied on 12 October that it would not permit the “safe passage” to the hospital for purposes of medical tests.
“He has been suffering with a constant pain to the right shoulder region for the past three months”, it states.
“No one should ever have to face that choice”. I examined him and all movements of his shoulder (abduction, internal rotation and external rotation) are limited due to pain.
The British government has accused Ecuador of obstructing justice by harboring Assange at its embassy, and on Monday reiterated its “deep frustration at the protracted delay” in prosecuting him, the United Kingdom Foreign Office said.
The allowance would be for a few hours to allow Assange to be able to have medical tests undertaken and to diagnose the cause.
The development comes after Scotland Yard called off its multimillion pound 24-hour surveillance of the embassy earlier this week, having decided the operation is “no longer proportionate”.
Britain made a “formal protest” to Ecuador over Assange in August through its ambassador in Quito.
Patino said the inability to guarantee the Australian Wikileaks founder safety even for medical treatment is “an additional fault in his protection”.
Advertisement
Mr Assange, 44, was alleged to have raped a woman known as SW, then aged 26, and committed other sexual offences against AA, a 31-year-old woman.
