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Ecuador to continue to harbor Assange in wake of UN ruling

Xinhua, February 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ecuador will continue to harbor WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at its embassy in London in the wake of a United Nations ruling on the plight of the anti-secrecy activist, Ecuador's Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino said Thursday.

"We have given him protection and will of course continue to protect him. The fundamentals for which we granted him asylum are still valid," the state news agency Andina quoted Patino as saying.

Assange has been trapped at the embassy since seeking and receiving political asylum from Ecuador in 2012, as British authorities have been threatening to arrest him if he steps outside the premises.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions (WGAD) has reportedly ruled his detention to be arbitrary and therefore illegal. The ruling is not binding, but could bring pressure on the countries involved in Assange's more-than-three-year virtual imprisonment at the embassy, namely Britain and Sweden.

The UN group has yet to publish its findings, but has already issued its recommendations to the two countries.

Britain on Thursday responded that a European arrest warrant for Assange remained in place, and it was obligated to abide by it.

"We have been consistently clear that Mr Assange has never been arbitrarily detained by the UK but is, in fact, voluntarily avoiding lawful arrest by choosing to remain in the Ecuadorian embassy," a British government spokesman was quoted as saying by the BBC.

Sweden, which is seeking Assange's extradition to question him in relation to alleged rape and sexual misconduct, also responded, saying the UN group's decision "has no formal bearing on the investigation underway."

Assange said earlier on Twitter that he will accept arrest by British police on Friday if UN rules against him.

Assange complained to the UN in 2014 that he was being "arbitrarily detained" as he could not leave the embassy without being arrested.

The former Australian computer hacker denies allegations of wrongdoing stemming from two sexual encounters in Sweden in 2010, saying the rape charge is intended to extradite him to the United States, where officials have said he should be tried for spying and other crimes.

Since its founding in 2006, WikiLeaks has released massive confidential military documents on the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and compromising diplomatic cables, which have angered Washington. Endi