After being confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in southwest London for two years, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is considering leaving it since he has developed a life threatening heart defect and a chronic lung condition, Sky News reported. The Australian-born is expected to hold a news conference Monday morning where he will be announcing his next move.
Assange, 43, is contemplating about handing himself over to the police because he fears he will otherwise be unable to receive hospital treatment if he doesn't leave the embassy, The Telegraph reported, citing his supporters. Metropolitan police officers have continued surveillance after being stationed outside the embassy since Assange entered the building and have been ordered to arrest him if he attempts to leave, the paper said.
Assange, whose website WikiLeaks published classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents, has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy building in central London since being granted diplomatic asylum by the Latin American nation in August 2012, Press Trust of India reported.
Under a European Arrest Warrant, Britain wants to extradite him to Sweden for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation of two women, according to PTI. However, Assange fears that he will be extradited from Sweden to the United States, where he could face 35 years in prison for publishing classified documents related to the Pentagon's activities in Iraq and Afghanistan on WikiLeaks.
"After two years unable to go outside living within the air-conditioned interior of the embassy, Assange is suffering from arrhythmia, which is a form of irregular heartbeat, a chronic cough and high blood pressure," the paper said, citing WikiLeaks sources.
Lack of Vitamin D, which is produced by exposure to sunshine, is damaging Assange's health and could lead to a host of conditions including asthma, diabetes, weak bones and even heightened risk of dementia, the sources revealed.
"Mr. Assange gave a newspaper interview yesterday in which he sounded very dispirited," Sky News Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt said. "A lot of the fighting spirit seems to have gone out of him. It's also been made clear from those around him that he's quite ill. He's said to have a heart condition, a chronic lung complaint, bad eyesight, high blood-pressure, all as a result of ... two years in the Ecuadorian embassy."
The Ecuadorian embassy has asked the Foreign Office for permission to transport Assange to hospital in a diplomatic car but has received no response, it added.
