厄瓜多尔总统称阿桑奇可随时离开厄大使馆

12月6日，厄瓜多尔总统对基多一家广播电台表示，朱里安·阿桑奇随时可能离开厄瓜多尔驻伦敦大使馆，而且基本不会入狱或被引渡并面临死刑指控。

从2012年起，维基解密的创始人阿桑奇一直待在厄瓜多尔大使馆。他坚称如果离开，英国政府就会把他引渡到美国受审。2017年4月，时任美国司法部长杰夫·塞申斯表示逮捕阿桑奇是“首要任务”。

厄瓜多尔总统莱宁·莫雷诺说已从英国方面获得“充分保证”，英国不会把阿桑奇送到别国面对死刑，而且阿桑奇在英国会被判得很轻，因为罪名只是到厄瓜多尔大使馆寻求避难逃过了保释金。莫雷诺在直播采访中称：“阿桑奇面前的路很明确，就是决定离开。”

近几个月，厄瓜多尔一直在向阿桑奇施压并限制他行动，今年3月断了阿桑奇的网，理由是他的政治言论违反了庇护协议。5月有报道称，阿桑奇有可能失去庇护。最近，阿桑奇的个人卫生和养的宠物猫也受到审查。据意大利《共和报》报道，阿桑奇随后把猫送给了别人收养。

莫雷诺还表示：“我不喜欢阿桑奇一直留在厄瓜多尔大使馆，但我们一直很尊重他的人权。”他说“以近乎封闭的状态困在大使馆”六年实在太久了。

有关阿桑奇的声明并未排除以非死刑指控将其引渡的可能。今年11月15日，美国联邦检察官无意间透露，针对俄罗斯干涉2016年美国大选的调查中，已将阿桑奇列为非公开指控对象。阿桑奇的维基解密泄露了美国很多秘密，包括外交电文、中情局的黑客工具以及2016年从民主党全国委员会窃取的大量电子邮件。

在进入厄瓜多尔大使馆前，阿桑奇为避免被引渡到瑞典受审抗争了两年，当时瑞典检察机构考虑以性侵罪名起诉他。2017年5月，部分调查事项已超出瑞典法律的追诉时效，瑞典方面也撤销了对阿桑奇的逮捕令。检察机构认为不可能按潜在犯罪推进此案，目前潜在犯罪规定仍在时效内，如果阿桑奇在2020年之前前往瑞典仍将是犯罪嫌疑人。

强奸案的原告律师当时对新闻机构表示，其当事人“感到震惊”并且坚持要起诉阿桑奇。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

Julian Assange can walk out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London any time he wants and face little prospect of jail time or extradition to face charges that carry a death penalty, the president of Ecuador told a radio station in Quito on Dec. 6.

Wikileaks founder Assange has remained in the Embassy since 2012, and maintains that the United Kingdom would extradite him to the U.S. to face charges if he exited his sanctuary. Then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April 2017 that arresting Assange was a “priority.”

President Lenin Moreno said he had “sufficient guarantees” from the U.K. that it would not extradite Assange to face the death penalty in another country, and that Assange faced only a brief sentence in the U.K. for skipping bail by claiming sanctuary in the embassy. “The road is clear for Mr. Assange to take the decision to leave,” Moreno said in a live radio interview.

In recent months, Ecuador has clamped down on Assange and his behavior, cutting off his Internet access in March 2018 after making political statements that Ecuador said violated his agreement for sanctuary. Reports in May indicated that Assange might be in jeopardy of losing asylum. More recently, Assange’s personal hygiene and care of his pet cat were brought under scrutiny. Assange later gave the cat up for adoption, according to La Repubblica.

President Moreno also said, “I do not like the presence of Mr. Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy, but we have been respectful of his human rights.” The president said that six years was too long for someone to remain “nearly incarcerated in an embassy.”

Assange’s statement doesn’t preclude extradition on non-capital charges, however, and on Nov. 15, U.S. federal prosecutors accidentally revealed that Assange had been fingered under seal in the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Assange’s Wikileaks released a variety of U.S. secrets, including diplomatic cables and CIA hacking tools, as well as a dump of email hacked from the Democratic National Committee in 2016.

Assange entered the embassy after two years of battling an extradition to Sweden to be questioned by prosecutors, who were considering whether charges should be brought against Assange for sexual assault. Some of the matters under investigation expired under Swedish statute of limitations by May 2017, when Swedish authorities revoked the arrest warrant. Prosecutors deemed it impossible to proceed on a remaining potential offense, which remains active were Assange to return to Sweden by 2020.

The lawyer for a woman who accused Assange of rape told news agencies at the time that her client was “shocked” and maintained her accusations.