Britain threatens to arrest Julian Assange

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said Ecuador is prepared to organize an operating room in its embassy in the UK capital if Assange’s medical state appears to be urgent.

This comes after Patino recently met with British Foreign Secretary William Hague to demand London’s approval to allow the 41-year-old Australian activist leave the mission for receiving medical care without being arrested. But the UK government was hesitant about the request, as a British official said, "Maybe the Ecuadoreans should have thought of that before they granted him asylum."

However, in an interview in New York, Patino stressed that the government of the South American country will provide a medical presence for Assange, who has secured political asylum to Ecuador.

"One thing we have proposed is to have an ambulance parked outside. What we have said, if such a case should happen, we should be ready to install an operating theatre inside the premises, unless Mr Hague responds, as he promised in the next few days, that he [Assange] would be able to go to a hospital," Patino said.

The WikiLeaks founder has spent over 100 days in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, being sheltered from extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over a sexual abuse case.

Many supporters of Assange believe that his extradition to the North European country is a plot to hand him over to Washington, where he could face human rights abuse or even the death penalty for revealing the US diplomatic cables.