Ecuador president says Julian Assange must eventually leave London embassy

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a step closer to being evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy in London after President Lenin Moreno said the whistleblower must "eventually" leave the facility.

Assange will eventually need to leave the diplomatic mission in London, where he has been living for six years since 2012, Moreno said at an event in Madrid on Friday.However, there is no word on when exactly this might happen. Yet, Ecuador has already contacted the British government over the WikiLeaks founder's situation, Reuters says.

The news came on the heels of earlier reports that the founder of the whistleblowing portal would be handed over to British authorities.

Assange’s relationship with Ecuadorian officials had appeared increasingly fraught, with the country, which provided him with asylum and citizenship, cutting off his internet connection in March.

The official reason behind the move was to stop Assange from “interfering in the affairs of other sovereign states,” Ecuador said at the time. Efforts to have an arrest warrant against Assange dropped by the UK failed earlier this year.

The whistleblower is feared to be facing extradition to the US over troves of leaked documents.

In 2010, WikiLeaks published classified US military footage entitled ‘Collateral Murder.’ It featured a US Apache helicopter gunship opening fire on a number of people killing 12, including two Reuters staff, and injuring two children.

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