RELEASE
Quito, April 5, 2019

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility categorically rejects the false news that has circulated these days in social networks, many of them disseminated by an organization linked to Mr. Julian Assange, about an imminent termination of diplomatic asylum granted to him from 2012. These "information" also distort reality by pointing out that Ecuador would have reached an agreement with the United Kingdom to imprison Mr. Assange when he leaves our Embassy in London.

The Ecuadorian Government observes that these falsehoods are, in addition, an attempt to defile the dignity of the country. Ecuador adopts its international decisions in exercise of its sovereignty and with total independence from other countries. Granting diplomatic asylum is a sovereign power of Ecuador, which therefore has the right to grant or terminate it when it deems it justified and without consulting third parties.

By issuing information that falsifies the truth, the asylee and his associates once again express ingratitude and disrespect towards Ecuador, instead of showing gratitude to the country that has welcomed him for almost seven years, which has made significant expenditures to pay for his stay in Ecuador. the Embassy, which has endured its rudeness and to which, paradoxically, he has prosecuted for adopting a protocol of coexistence to prevent their acts of misbehavior from happening again in the future.

The barrage of insults and false news may respond to the National Assembly of Ecuador, by resolution of March 28, 2019, requested the Minister of Foreign Affairs to seek to determine the participation of Mr. Julian Assange in the President's private information illicit publications of the Republic in social networks. To this effect, the Chancellor filed a complaint with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy of the UN, on April 2, and collected the declaration of the asylee through a questionnaire presented to him by the Embassy in London on March 4.

The Ecuadorian State reiterates once again that it will apply to the case of Mr. Assange the relevant provisions of international law, especially the Inter-American conventions on diplomatic asylum of 1928 and 1954, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Special Protocol of October 2018. According to that regulation, Mr. Assange has rights but also obligations to comply with and which respect will be required at all times: no person under the jurisdiction of Ecuador is above the Law.

Ruptly is live from outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Monday, May 20, as police authorities are set to search for documents and possessions left behind by Julian Assange inside the room he occupied for almost seven years.

According to reports, the office of Ecuador’s attorney general, Diana Salazar, informed Assange’s lawyer, Carlos Poveda, that the WikiLeaks founder’s belongings, including computers, mobile phones, memory sticks and other electronic devices, will be seized and sent to the US as part of Ecuador’s response to the Department of Justice’s judicial request.

Assange was arrested by British police on April 11, 2019 after Ecuador officially revoked his asylum status and allowed UK police to escort him from the embassy and into custody.

The WikiLeaks founder was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison by a court in London for violating bail conditions after spending seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy.