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from the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend dept.
Revealed: Russia's secret plan to help Julian Assange escape from UK
Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned.
A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador's London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country.
One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky.
The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017, one source claimed, and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give Assange formal diplomatic status.
Related: Ecuador Grants Citizenship to Julian Assange
Ecuador Reportedly Almost Ready to Hand Julian Assange Over to UK Authorities
Associated Press Publishes Supposedly Leaked WikiLeaks Documents
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @03:23PM (2 children)
It is an island nation, where everybody is less than 80 miles from the sea. One would think that some crazy aussie, yank or frenchman would sail over, have the guy delivered in the trunk of a car to one of hundred fishing villages, and just sail his ass out of the country. It would make a great adventure, and certainly sell a lot of books.
Of course this would require him to shut up long enough for his absence to go unnoticed.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday September 24 2018, @06:34AM (1 child)
Assange is safe as long as he is not on UK soil, within the embassy flat is Ecuadorian soil, so he is safe, but that is why he can't set foot outside, and hasn't, for years now.
The problem is getting the guy out of the embassy and delivered out of London to wherever. He has round the clock surveillance, and any parcel large enough to hide a human in is checked on leaving the premises. Contrary to popular belief, diplomatic bags can be searched by the hosting country if there is grounds to believe a crime is taking place right there and then. Plus Ecuador is weak enough as a country that the UK can violate diplomatic protocol with them (indeed the UK makes a habit of violating diplomatic and international law almost as much as the USA does).
The embassy is also not like most Americans think an embassy looks like (US Embassies tend to look like imperial forts. Huge grounds, Helipads, standalone building(s), large walls (sometimes with barbed wire) and armed guards all around, and in the case of the UK, a moat apparently).
The Ecuadorian embassy is just a normal flat in a building in a (admittedly posh and exclusive) residential area. It isn't even a ground floor flat, so you can't consider trying to get him out from underground. It isn't a top floor flat either, and has no grounds, so you don't have a roof or other space to land a helicopter on to whisk him away. It is smack bang in the middle, meaning the only way in or out is via the front door (or jumping out the window to the waiting cops, assuming you don't impale yourself on the spiked railings below).
Even assuming you somehow manage to get Assange out of that flat into London without the cops arresting him, you are still stuck in central London, one of the most congested places in the world. The fastest way out of there is to walk, but Assange would be noticed and pursued, so I guess a car would be the best option, but that could well take a few hours to get out of London, all the while risking exposure and pursuit by the cops. I guess you can mitigate this by doing your operation in the early hours of the morning, but I can attest to being stuck in clogged traffic in central London at 2am, so that is no guarantee of empty roads and a fast blast down to the coast to a waiting boat.
Honestly, Assange could not have picked a worse place to hole himself up in. I don't know why he went to the Ecuadorians in the first place. They are not strong enough as a nation to extricate him from the UK, or the US, and their embassy does not have the facilities to transport him out of the country without setting foot on UK soil. Any embassy which at least had grounds or a roof to land a helicopter on would have sufficed, or done what Snowden did and go to the Russians, who are powerful enough to keep the US/UK at bay.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday September 24 2018, @05:38PM
Beggars can't be choosers? And possibly this [pbs.org].
This sig for rent.