Ecuador is expected to announce a decision within the next week on whether to grant WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange political asylum. Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden and ultimately, he says, to the United States. On a visit to Ecuador, Assange’s attorney, the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, said the British government would have no legal grounds to block Assange’s journey to Ecuador should he be granted asylum.

Baltasar Garzón: “Hypothetically, if asylum is granted, Great Britain can’t say they won’t send him. One can always say no. We are tired of seeing international conventions being breached or not agreed with by different countries. But legally, they can’t do it, because Ecuador is a sovereign state, a free, democratic state, exactly like the United States. Nothing more, nothing less.”