Assange's mom in Ecuador to seek son's asylum

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's mother has arrived in Quito to urge Ecuadorean authorities to grant her son political asylum.

'“Surely, the president (Rafael Correa) and his staff will make the best decision,” state-run El Ciudadano website quoted Christine Assange as saying.

Assange has been hiding at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for over a month to avoid his extradition to Sweden, where he faces a rape trial he calls ‘politically motivated’. Assange’s whistleblowing site WikiLeaks made an enemy of the US government in 2010, when it leaked hundreds of thousands of American diplomatic cables.

Anything for my boy: Christine Assange, mother of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has gone to Ecuador to plead for her son’s safety. File Pic/Getty Images

The US authorities have not ruled out requesting his extradition from Sweden. Assange has requested asylum in Ecuador, whose president is still considering the request.

If her son is sent to the US, he “could expect a sentence of death or many years in prison with torture as they are doing now with Bradley Manning”, Christine Assange was quoted by El Ciudadano as saying.

Manning is a US Army intelligence analyst who is suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military and State Department documents while serving in Iraq.

Many of the documents ended up on the WikiLeaks website. He is being held on the charges of aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defence information and theft of public property or records. He could be sentenced to life imprisonment, if convicted.

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