Time to free WikiLeaks founder, Ecuador says after UN panel decision

14:43 - 05 February 2016

Time to free Assange, Ecuador says after U.N. panel decision

Assange, a computer hacker who enraged the United States by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, has been holed up in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid a rape investigation in Sweden.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange must be allowed to go free from the Ecuadorian embassy in London following a U.N. panel ruling calling for that on Friday, the South American country's Foreign Minister said.

"What more do they want to be accused of before they start to rectify their error?"Ricardo Patino told regional broadcaster Telesur, in reference to Britain and Sweden.

Saying Assange was a victim of "evident political persecution," Patino added Ecuador was analyzing its next steps in the legal and diplomatic arena.