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Lenin Moreno will continue to Protect Assange but wants to solve the problem
Posted On 26 Jan 2018
Ecuadornews:
The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, said today that his country will continue to protect the journalist Julian Assange, a refugee in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, while his life is in danger because the United States requires her for trial.
“In Ecuador there is no death penalty. We take care of and protect life, “said the Ecuadorian president during a meeting with the press in the city of Santo Domingo Lenin Moreno, who described the problem of “a stone in the shoe”, insisted that the Ecuadorian State will continue to protect the integrity of the Wikileaks founder who has remained in the embassy since June 2012.
And he described the Assange issue as a problem that he inherited from the previous executive of Rafael Correa, who granted him the status of asylum. “We did not generate it, we inherited it. We inherited it but we do not believe that the treatment that has been given to the problem has been completely negative, “he said about the policy of his predecessor.
For more than five years, Assange has lived in a room in the Ecuadorian embassy, where according to different reports, his health has weakened.
About US intention after his extradition, Lenin Moreno considered that, if he were denied asylum, Washington could always request his extradition and judge him for “treason.”
“We sincerely think that his life could be in danger, and for us that would be terrible, which is why they keep him in the embassy while they find a viable way out that benefits both Britain and Ecuador, so that Assange takes care of his life, but at the same time “be sanctioned for the mistake he made”.
Unlike the previous Ecuadorian Executive, Lenin Moreno has been trying for months to find a solution to end his asylum status and recently naturalized him in order to grant him diplomatic status and thus allow him to leave Britain.
Faced with the refusal of London to grant safe passage through its territory, Moreno said today that he aspires to reach a “mediation”, which for weeks has been looking for his Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa, to solve the problem.
And he confirmed that he has already discussed the matter in person with the Ambassador of Great Britain in Quito, Catherine Ward, to reach some sort of agreement.
In his declarations, the Ecuadorian president defended at all times the right of Assange to live, and reaffirmed that Ecuador has acted according to its principles to prevent the journalist and founder of Wikileaks can be sentenced to death for “mistakes” of the past. (I)
