Quito (Ecuador): Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa, has said the sex crime allegations filed in a court in Sweden against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are not crimes in nearly every other country.
Correa said the sex crime allegations against Assange were ‘not a crime in Latin America’ and had played no part in Quito’s decision to grant him asylum.
“The crimes that Assange is accused of, they would not be crimes in 90 to 95 percent of the planet,” Correa said.
"Not to use a condom in an act between a couple, this is not a crime in Latin America, he added.
"But I don`t want to get any more into this. This has been irrelevant to the decision taken by Ecuador," the Herald Sun quoted Correa, as saying.
Correa also blasted the British Government for its ‘contradictions’ in wanting to extradite Assange to Sweden, when it did not extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet after his 1998 arrest in London on an international arrest warrant issued by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who is now heading Assange’s legal team.
“Britain supported Augusto Pinochet unconditionally. And, they let him go, they didn`t extradite him on humanitarian grounds, whereas they want to extradite Julian Assange for not using a condom, for the love of God, Correa said.
"These are grave contradictions," he added.
Assange fears he would be passed on to the United States, which he enraged after releasing a number of secret documents, the report said.
ANI
