BREAKING: Ecuador orders withdrawal of extra Assange security from embassy in London

May 18, 2018  06H:24  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Enrique Krause and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, QUITO

QUITO - The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, ordered the withdrawal on Thursday of additional security assigned to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has remained for almost six years.

FILE PHOTO: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London, Britain, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall/File Photo

The Australian took refuge in the small diplomatic headquarters in 2012 to avoid sexual abuse charges in Sweden. He rejects the charges and prosecutors have abandoned their investigation.

However, British authorities are still seeking his arrest.

“The President of the Republic, Lenin Moreno, has ordered that any additional security at the Ecuadorian embassy in London be withdrawn immediately,” the government said in a statement. “

From now on, it will maintain normal security similar to that of other Ecuadorian embassies,” the statement said.

Ecuador suspended Assange’s communication systems in March after his pointed political comments on Twitter.

Moreno has described Assange’s situation as “a stone in his shoe.”

Ecuador: Conservative asks for recount as leftist claims victory

Mon Apr 3, 2017 |  02H:32  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Renee Celeste and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Quito

Leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno claimed victory in Ecuador's presidential election on Sunday but the right-wing challenger disputed the result and asked for a recount, setting the stage for potential protests in the historically turbulent Andean nation.

Moreno had 51.06 percent of the votes compared to conservative candidate Guillermo Lasso's 48.94 percent, according to the country's electoral council, with 93.5 percent of votes counted. The electoral council had not declared a winner.

"They've toyed with popular will," former banker Lasso told Ecuadorean television on Sunday night, asking for a recount and saying he was the real winner of the vote.

He cited the first round of the election in February, when final results took days to come out and his supporters massed in front of the electoral council to guard against what they said were fraud attempts.

Dozens of Lasso supporters in his coastal hometown of Guayaquil were marching on the electoral council office there on Sunday night, shouting, "No to fraud, yes to democracy!" according to a Reuters witness.

But Moreno, a paraplegic former vice-president who has promised to boost social welfare, was already celebrating a victory that would extend a decade of leftist rule.

"From now on, let's work for the country! All of us!" Moreno told cheering supporters in mountainous capital Quito.

A Lasso defeat would come as a relief for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, whom he had promised to remove from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

It would also buck a trend in South America, where right-leaning governments have come to power in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru recently as a commodities boom ended and corruption accusations grew.

"The revolution has triumphed again in Ecuador," outgoing President Rafael Correa said on Twitter. "The right has lost, despite its millions and its media."