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05 July 2012| last updated at 02:44PM

Assange charges are 'hilarious': Ecuadoran minister



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QUITO: Ecuador’s foreign minister has said that rape and sexual assault cases lodged in Sweden against Julian Assange are laughable, but no ruling has yet been made on the WikiLeaks founder’s asylum application.

 

“Personally, (I think) this is hilarious,” Ecuadoran chief diplomat Ricardo  Patino told reporters, explaining that Assange “is charged because his condom  broke.”    Assange is currently at the Ecuadoran embassy in London, seeking political  asylum in the Latin American country.
 
Ecuadoran officials are examining the allegations of sexual misconduct in  their review of Assange’s application.
 
Patino said that one of the alleged victims filed a complaint, because she “realised that on certain nights, the condom broke.”    
 
Assange, an Australian, maintains he only had consensual sexual relations  with the alleged victims.
   
WikiLeaks and Assange enraged the United States by publishing a flood of  secret information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
   
The website founder fears that if extradited to Sweden, he will be  subsequently re-extradited to the United States to stand trial for espionage,  on account of the 250,000 US diplomatic cables that were published.
   
British and Swedish authorities are awaiting Ecuador’s decision regarding  Assange’s asylum application, but Patino reported that investigations into the  claims of the two alleged victims are ongoing.
 
Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa, who has often been at odds with  Washington and offered Assange asylum in 2010, has said that the South American  country will take its time considering the application. -- AFP
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