Just before his fourth asylum-versary in a stuffy corner of a South American nation’s London embassy, Julian Assange got a surprise present.
Bosses at the Ecuadorian Embassy finally agreed to let prosecutors from Sweden – who want to know whether to charge him with rape – question him on the premises.
It ends years of stalemate over the hacker, who has been hiding under political asylum rules since British police made it clear they would extradite him to Sweden.
Assange claims to be ready to answer accusations of sex crimes that await him there, but has refused to go for fear that he will get deported to the US to stand trial for leaking government secrets on his site.
In the meantime, the British state has spent in excess of £13.2million keeping him under police guard during his stay.
His free crash pad, courtesy of the hard-pressed Ecuadorian taxpayer, also saved him a stack of cash. Based on conservative estimates, Heat Street believes Assange would have had to pay some £200,000 to rent a one-bedroom flat in Knightsbridge for four years.
Assange took refuge on August 16, 2012, after the Ecuadorian government accepted his asylum claim and started sheltering him under diplomatic immunity rules.
Since then he has never left the relatively small building in London’s exclusive Knightsbridge district, where he has a room, a treadmill and, recently, a kitten:
What a smeowgasbord! #cheese pic.twitter.com/OdDDc66l5q
— Embassy Cat (@EmbassyCat) June 2, 2016
Until October 2015 – when the Metropolitan Police effectively gave up – Assange had a 24-hour police guard outside the embassy, primed to arrest him if he left its confines.
From within the embassy, Assange has continued to cause trouble, leaking secrets about everything from the Democratic National Committee’s internal affairs to US trade deals to the war in Syria.
He has also spent his ample free time engaging in flame wars with reporters over supposed slights:
@kj_corcoran thanks for the story, but there are three serious errors:
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 26, 2014
Including a dramatic confrontation over whether or not he had ordered a Texas BBQ-style pizza:
@JamieGrierson No. It's a fabricated story, like so many from London. No doubt the pizza ordered by a UK 'journalist' down on his luck.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 12, 2015
@JamesLiamCook @Ned_Donovan At no time during the siege has delivered food been ordered. It is a high stakes embassy siege. Think.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 12, 2015
He also became the subject of nationwide mockery when a UN panel claimed he had been “arbitrarily detained” by British authorities.
They in turn pointed out he could go outside whenever he liked – but would definitely get arrested. Lots of people saw the funny side:
#ArbitrarilyDetained pic.twitter.com/om8NlwMiCr
— Asa Bennett (@asabenn) February 5, 2016
Concerned that I've been #arbitrarilydetained in this office, please call the United Nations immediately pic.twitter.com/mXCvw7gMYk
— Paul Hardcastle (@hardcastIe) February 5, 2016
But the new decision by Swedish prosecutors – who have essentially blinked first in Assange’s game of chicken – could mean an end to his status as a disheveled laughing stock.
His lawyers insist the case will be dropped when proper scrutiny is applied – allowing him to walk genuinely free for the first time in around six years (he was on bail as far back as 2010).
And if not, he must have got pretty comfy in that embassy.
