LONDON - He's won asylum in Ecuador, but Julian Assange is no closer to getting there.
The decision by the Latin American nation to identify the WikiLeaks founder as a political refugee is a symbolic boost for the embattled ex-hacker. But legal experts said that does little to help him avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.
Instead, with British officials asserting they won't grant Assange safe passage out of the country, the case has done much to drag the two nations into an international faceoff.
"We're at something of an impasse," British lawyer Rebecca Niblock said. "It's not a question of law anymore. It's a question of politics and diplomacy."
The Australian shot to international prominence in 2010 after he began publishing a huge trove of American diplomatic and military secrets -- including a quarter-million U.S. Embassy cables that shed a harsh light on the backroom dealings of U.S. diplomats. Amid the ferment, two Swedish women accused him of sexual assault; Assange has been fighting extradition to Sweden ever since.
Threat of unjust prosecution
The convoluted saga took its latest twist Thursday, when Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino announced that he had granted political asylum to Assange, who has been holed up inside the nation's small embassy since June 19. He said Ecuador was taking action because Assange faces a serious threat of unjust prosecution at the hands of U.S. officials.
That was a nod to the fears expressed by Assange and others that the Swedish sex case is merely the opening gambit in a Washington-orchestrated plot to make him stand trial in the United States -- something disputed by both Swedish authorities and the women involved.