Assange wants Ecuador to win in Brazil
AAP
By Julian Drape June 19, 2014, 8:02 am
There's only one team WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is supporting in the World Cup and it's not Australia.
Thursday marks the second anniversary of Assange entering the Ecuadorean embassy in London to seek political asylum which was granted in mid-August 2012.
It's perhaps understandable then that the Queensland-born whistleblower is backing the South American country he hopes to one day call home.
"I have been watching the World Cup although the reception in this building is quite difficult," Assange told reporters during a phone conference on Wednesday.
"Of course Ecuador undoubtedly deserves to win the World Cup (and) it also has a pretty decent team."
But with so much prestige on the line for the host nation Assange is predicting Brazil is "the most likely victor".
This time last year, Assange launched a blistering attack on the Gillard government for abandoning him.
He said Labor "bent over more than any other country in the world" to appease the US.
Twelve months on he says the election of the conservative Abbott government in September 2013 "produced no change in the situation".
"Sadly it is the state of the Australian government ... that both sides of politics have been extremely close to the United States," he said.
Assange walked into the Ecuadorean embassy on June 19, 2012, and was granted political asylum two months later on August 16.
However, Britain refuses to allow Assange safe passage out of the embassy and is spending millions of pounds a year on 24-hour surveillance.
It says it has a legal obligation to extradite the Australian to Sweden for questioning over sexual assault allegations.
