Former British Ambassador, LSE Professor Take Uk Govt to Task Over Threat Against Ecuador Over Assange

British police outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London

Former British ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles has said that Britain’s threat to storm the Ecuadorian embassy in London and arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “was a big mistake”.

Mr Miles said: “It puts the British government in the position of asking for something illegitimate”.

While under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, diplomatic posts are treated as the territory of the foreign nation, on Thursday August 16, Britain referred to a little known UK law and warned Ecuador that it could storm the South American country’s embassy in London.

In the British government's letter to Ecuadorian officials it said: “You should be aware that there is a legal basis in the UK - the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act - which would allow us to take action to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy”.

The law was passed in the UK in 1984 following the death of a British police officer, Yvonne Joyce Fletcher, in London after shots were fired from the first floor of the Libyan embassy during a protest staged by opponents to former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

However, experts and ex-diplomats have said the Foreign Office’s threat to Ecuador “was a big mistake” as it angered Ecuadorian officials.

Following reports that British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is on holiday in Spain, contacted the Foreign Office expressing concerns over the diplomatic blunder, the Foreign Office insisted that its letter was “not a threat”.

Nevertheless, Miles dismissed the remarks with a laugh saying “If I tell you, ‘I'm not threatening you but I DO have a very large stick here,’ it’s a question of semantics”.

Meanwhile, professor Chris Brown, who is international relations professor at the London School of Economics, LSE, describes as “stupid,” the British foreign secretary’s suggestion of breaching the Ecuadorian embassy’s security.

Prof. Brown sad that the whole matter presents Britain as “mind-bogglingly stupid to raise the issue in the first place.” He added that “anyone” including his “first-year students” would know that Britain is committing a “fundamental error” and that it has “no chance” of lawfully raiding the embassy and getting Assange.

Media reports said on Sunday that at least one of the lawyers at the Foreign Office let Hague know of grave reservations that Britain can use the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 to raid the embassy building and get Assange.

The foreign Office let the embassy know on Wednesday that the 1987 Act could be used to “storm” its premises apparently on the grounds that British law allows officials to revoke the diplomatic immunity of an embassy if it “ceases to use land for the purposes of its mission” but that should be done if “permissible under international law.”

The permissibility of a raid on the embassy is under question, not the least by the Organisation of American States (OAS) that will discuss the matter in the context of the international law a meeting called by Ecuador on Friday.

This is while Britain’s argument is further undermined by the fact that they want to prevent Assange, who has won a political asylum request from Ecuador, extradited to Sweden where he is facing “questions” on sexual assault allegations not even charges.

A former British government lawyer and legal commentator, Carl Gardner, also derided what Britain has done saying it can go ahead with the raid and lose diplomatic ties with Ecuador.

"It might be better simply to cut off diplomatic relations with Ecuador, send the ambassador home, close the embassy and arrest Assange after that," he wrote on his blog.

Britain says it wants Australian-born Assange arrested and sent to Sweden, which has demanded his extradition to face questions on sexual abuse accusations.

However, a recent comment by Australian officials has strengthened speculations that Sweden wants Assange back so that they could extradite him to the US where he is wanted in connection with WikiLeaks’ publication of confidential US diplomatic cables that turned into an international crisis for Washington two years ago.

Ecuador has been reported saying that it was willing to let Assange go for trial in Sweden but it wants assurances that he is not then extradited to a third party – meaning the US.

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