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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
appears on screen via video link during a news conference at the
Frontline Club in London, Britain February 5, 2016.
WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange called on Britain and Sweden on Friday to let him freely leave
the Ecuadorian embassy in London after a UN panel ruled he had been
arbitrarily detained and should be awarded compensation.
Assange, a computer hacker who enraged the United States by
publishing hundreds of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables, has
been holed up in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid a rape
investigation in Sweden.
Both Britain and Sweden denied that
Assange was being deprived of freedom, noting he had entered the embassy
voluntarily. Britain said it could contest the decision and that
Assange would be arrested if he left the embassy.
Assange, an
Australian, appealed to the UN panel, whose decision is not binding,
saying he was a political refugee whose rights had been infringed by
being unable to take up asylum in Ecuador.
It ruled in his favour,
although the decision was not unanimous. Three of the five members on
the panel supported a decision in Assange's favour, with one dissenter
and one recusing herself.
Speaking via video link from his cramped
quarters at the embassy in the Knightsbridge area of London, Assange
called on Britain and Sweden to implement the UN panel's decision.
"We
have today a really significant victory that has brought a smile to my
face," Assange said. "It is now the task of the states of Sweden and the
United Kingdom ... to implement the (UN) verdict."
Assange, 44,
denies allegations of a 2010 rape in Sweden, saying the accusation is a
ploy that would eventually take him to the United States where a
criminal investigation into the activities of WikiLeaks is still open.
"The
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considers that the various forms
of deprivation of liberty to which Julian Assange has been subjected
constitute a form of arbitrary detention," the group's head, Seong-Phil
Hong, said in a statement.
"(It) maintains that the arbitrary
detention of Mr Assange should be brought to an end, that his physical
integrity and freedom of movement be respected, and that he should be
entitled to an enforceable right to compensation."
Ecuador's
foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, said Assange must be allowed to go
free. "What more do they want to be accused of before they start to
rectify their error?" he told South American broadcaster Telesur, in
reference to Britain and Sweden. Patino said Ecuador was analysing its
next steps.
No change
The decision in his
favour marks the latest twist in a tumultuous journey for Assange since
he incensed Washington with leaks that laid bare often highly critical
US appraisals of world leaders from Vladimir Putin to the Saudi royal
family.
In 2010, the group released over 90,000 secret documents
on the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan, followed by almost
400,000 US military reports detailing operations in Iraq. Those
disclosures were followed by release of millions of diplomatic cables
dating back to 1973.
The UN Working Group does not have the
authority to order the release of a detainee - and Friday's ruling in
unlikely to change the legal issues facing Assange - but it has
considered many high-profile cases and its backing carries a moral
weight that puts pressure on governments.
High-profile cases
submitted to the UN panel include that of jailed former Maldives
President Mohamed Nasheed and of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian,
an Iranian-American jailed in Iran until a prisoner swap last month.
But
governments have frequently brushed aside its findings such as a ruling
on Myanmar's house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in
2008, a call in 2006 for the Iraqi government not to hang former
dictator Saddam Hussein, and frequent pleas for the closure of the US
military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
"Julian Assange is a fugitive
from justice. He is hiding from justice in the Ecuadorian embassy,"
British foreign minister Philip Hammond said. "This is frankly a
ridiculous finding by the working group and we reject it."
Swedish
prosecutors said the UN decision had no formal impact on the rape
investigation under Swedish law. A US Grand Jury investigation into
WikiLeaks is ongoing.
