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Julian Assange meets Ecuadorian Chancellery Protocol, says his defense lawyer
Posted On 02 Jan 2019
Ecuadornews:
Despite all the restrictions and “harassment” that the hacker Julian Assange claims to suffer at the Embassy of Ecuador in London-United Kingdom, as a political asylee, he clings to remain in diplomatic facilities.
It is more than six years since August 2012 that Assange is in the Embassy and his situation has become uncomfortable for Lenin Moreno’s government.
Carlos Poveda, Assange’s lawyer, says that since the implementation of the Protocol of Coexistence, Visits and Communications, last October, his client has complied with each provision; but that the Ecuadorian State has limited its actions. He says he does not have access to Wi-Fi, that there are no specialized medical exams, and that he does not have any dental or trauma services.
“Before there were already implicit rules of coexistence and they were fulfilled, expenses likewise (…) He no longer has a pet for some time … What you want to avoid is that there is some kind of transgression that ends the asylum and You can get him out of the embassy … “
The Ecuadorian government has indicated that its British counterpart says that if Assange leaves the embassy, he will not be handed over to a country where there is life imprisonment. But Poveda says they have not received any written notification about that.
Assange occupies three separate spaces in the Embassy and, in an interview with the prosecutor Salvador, said that to access them he must cross a corridor on his skateboard.
Once the Ecuadorian judicial system ratified the validity of the Protocol of Coexistence, what remains for the asylee and his defense is to go to the Inter-American Human Rights System, what they will do in the coming days.
For Mario Melo, director of the Human Rights Center of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, the issue is “complicated” and is a cause for concern because the State is not in a position to revoke an asylum that was granted at the time, knowing that the recall would put Assange at risk.
In addition, the United Kingdom has never been clear in giving assurances that it would not be extradited to another country.
On the other hand, the relationship with the United Kingdom, which is a world power, could deteriorate due to this situation and this may be bad for Ecuador.
Carlos Estarellas Velásquez, professor of International Law at the Catholic University of Guayaquil, considers that what Ecuador has done is to enforce the conventions of the asylum because Assange “was used to not respecting them and doing what he wanted at the Embassy.”
“Assange must comply with what is available to him in the country that has given him asylum. Ecuador has not violated any of his human rights, who has abused Ecuador has been Mr. Assange, “he said.
Without food
“There is a prison condition, rather than asylum,” says the defense of Julian Assange, referring to the limitations he has in the Embassy. He cites, for example, that visits by family members and lawyers on weekends are limited. And that on the November holiday, the Australian was without food service. (I)
