MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Ecuadorian Embassy in London criticized the UK government for failing to adequately respond to a recent security breach, in which an unidentified person tried to scale the side wall and window of its premises where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange resides, WikiLeaks said in a statement on Tuesday.
Early on Monday, an unknown man tried to climb a building within the compound of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where Assange has been living for four years, prompting media speculations of an assassination attempt. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations adopted in 1961, the host country is responsible for protecting the premises of any diplomatic mission against any form of intrusion or harm.
"The Ecuadorian Government therefore expresses its concern about the inadequate response by the British authorities, who only arrived at the embassy more than two hours after the incident took place. The Government of Ecuador regrets that, despite the enormous resources that the British government has undertaken to prevent Julian Assange leaving the Ecuadorian embassy, the authorities did not respond more quickly to this extremely serious attempt of an unauthorized entry," the statement reads.
Assange has been residing at the Ecuadorian Embassy having been granted political asylum since 2012 out of fear of being extradited to Sweden where he has been accused of sexual assault and rape. The whistleblower denies the allegations, claiming they are a ruse organized by Washington to further extradite him to the United States to try him for leaking thousands of top-secret military documents and embassy cables detailing Washington's war crimes in Iraq.
In October 2015, London police said they would end their 24/7 presence outside the Ecuadorean embassy. Also in October that year, media reported that the British authorities have reportedly spent almost $20 million monitoring Assange since he was first arrested in December 2010.
