Julian Assange: Ecuador Under Intense Pressure To End Wikileaks Founder’s Asylum

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June of 2012. Assange applied for political asylum at that time, and his request was granted in August of 2012. According to BBC News, chief among Julian Assange’s concerns in requesting asylum is not the charges he faces in Sweden over sexual assault allegations (which he denies), but rather a worry over possible deportation to the United States, where Assange may be brought up on charges that could earn him a death sentence. It is for this reason that Ecuador has historically justified providing asylum to Assange.

The potential charges Assange could face if extradited to the United States stem from a series of leaks of official United States documents beginning with the infamous 2010 Afghanistan war logs leaked to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, who was recently granted a commutation of her sentence for the crime by former President, Barack Obama, as previously reported by the Inquisitr.