Ecuador chides Sweden for dragging feet in Assange case

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino has rebuked Sweden for taking nearly three years to agree to question Julian Assange, founder of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, at Ecuador's embassy in London, Xinhua news agency reported.

"News item: Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny agrees to question Assange at our embassy in London, 1000 days later!" Patino posted on Twitter on Friday.

"From day 1 we offered to let them question him and they failed to," said Patino, adding "if they had accepted Ecuador's offer... 1000 days ago, it would have saved everybody a lot of money and trouble."

The Swedish court only agreed to the measure on Monday, in response to an appeal by Assange's lawyers.

Assange has been holed up in the embassy since 2012 after Ecuador agreed to give him political asylum. He was never able to leave the embassy building because Britain refused to grant him safe passage out of the country, claiming he was wanted by Sweden for questioning in two cases of alleged sexual assault.

Assange claims his sexual encounters were consensual, and that the real motive behind the legal machinations against him is to hand him over to the US, which wants to try him for crimes against the state.

Otherwise, his legal counsel has argued, Sweden, which has an extradition treaty with the US, would have agreed to question Assange where he was, a common legal practice.

WikiLeaks released thousands of confidential and incriminating US diplomatic cables and damning video footage of a US military strike against civilians and journalists in Iraq, both of which angered Washington.