I really don't think that the Metropolitan Police is going to put officers outside the Ecuador Assembly 24/7 just in case Julian Assange leaves. It just doesn't sound like a good use of the officers' time.
The US would be happy to volunteer a few if it's a question of manpower. Britain would probably commit their own just to avoid that kind of situation.
It just doesn't sound like a good use of the officers' time.
They've had the guy detained without charge for 500-odd days. Facing some international criticism and generally looking like hypocrites whenever they want to criticize some other country for having political prisoners. The case has been through their Supreme Court and now there's yet another country involved in this international incident.
When I was in London last year there were helicopters circling continuously in some places. If Assange gives them the slip somehow, it's not going to be because the local police preferred to prioritize something else that day.
> The US would be happy to volunteer a few if it's a question of manpower
How many times? This is nothing to do with the US. This is a UK-Sweden extradition of an Australian citizen. If the US DoJ ever gets off its ass and decides to press charges against Julian Assange (they've been sitting on their hands for a couple of years now) it's not gonna do it via some subtle cloak-and-dagger six-country shuffle, it'll just show up with a letter that says "o hai extradition plz".
The United States wants Julian Assange considerably more than they wanted Osama bin Laden. There is not the slightest doubt that he will be led out of the embassy in handcuffs if Ecuador doesn't grant asylum.
Is an embassy really obliged to shelter any foreign national who might show up on the run from the law for a fairly prosaic [ahem alleged] crime? If I knock over a gas station can I show up at the Tanzanian embassy, say "Hi, I'm a political refugee" and hang around for long enough for them to process this claim?
