Assange compares Ecuador embassy refuge to “space station”

PanARMENIAN.Net - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sheltering inside Ecuador’s embassy in London demonstrated his living and working conditions to journalists, RIA Novosti cited the The Daily Mail as saying.

“It's like living in a space station,” Assange said, describing his living in a one-room embassy refuge.

“The studio room has space for little more than a mattress on the floor, a rickety shelving unit and a small round table with leatherette chairs. But this is, for the time being at least, a cell of his choosing.”

Assange has a running machine and runs between three and five miles each day. He maintains a strict exercise regime, seeing a personal trainer every other day. He also has a UVB light to make up for not being in the sun.

“I put it on so I would look better, not so pale,” he told the paper.

“I miss many things, going to the shops or out to eat with friends. I miss an open horizon, putting my toes in the sea, going fishing, climbing a mountain…,” he said.

Assange, 41, has been hiding at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June to avoid his extradition to Sweden, where he faces a case in a rape trial that he calls politically motivated.

He was granted asylum in Ecuador in August but he still faces arrest the minute he steps out of the embassy building.

Assange’s whistleblowing site Wikileaks made an enemy of the U.S. government in 2010, when it leaked hundreds of thousands of American diplomatic cables. The U.S. authorities have not ruled out requesting his extradition from Sweden.