WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange requests brief embassy exit for MRI scan

Julian Assange should be allowed a “safe passage” out of the embassy where he has hidden for three years for a medical examination on his shoulder, the Ecuadorian government has claimed.

The Foreign Ministry cited a doctor’s note that said Assange, who has been living at the address for over three years, is in “constant pain”.

Assange faces arrest if he leaves the building, although police removed a 24 hour guard at the embassy earlier this week.

Assange, who’s Australian, entered the embassy in June 2012 to keep away from being extradited to Sweden, the place he’s needed for questioning over a rape allegation, which he denies.

Once Assange was brought to Sweden after being arrested, the risk of handing Assange to the US authorities for him to be persecuted over the WikiLeaks scandal is reportedly high.

“The operation to arrest Julian Assange does, however, continue, and should he leave the embassy the (police) will make every effort to arrest him”, Scotland Yard said in a statement.

Ecuador says that its request for the WikiLeaks editor to be granted safe passage to go to hospital for a check-up has been denied, The Guardian reports.

The 44-year-old whistleblower said he fears Swedish authorities will turn him in to the United States, where he is wanted for espionage and other crimes against the state. “No one should ever have to face that choice”, sid Carey Shenkman. I examined him and all movements of his shoulder (abduction, internal rotation and external rotation) are limited due to pain. Sweden and the United Kingdom have the responsibility to ensure that Mr Assange’s basic rights are respected. It said that the Foreign Office had replied on 12 October that it would not permit the “safe passage” to the hospital for purposes of medical tests.

The allowance would be for a few hours to allow Assange to be able to have medical tests undertaken and to diagnose the cause.

Assange had officially made the request to leave the embassy to UK’s Foreign Commonwealth Office on September 30.

Whether he’s an exemplar of patient fortitude or of contemptible cowardice, Assange, 44, has managed to frustrate the British and Swedish governments by immuring himself within the embassy, which is treated as Ecuadorean territory.