Julian Assange is concerned not about any proceedings in Sweden as such, but believe that his deportation to Sweden could lead to politically motivated deportation to the United States, where he could face severe penalties, up to the death sentence, for his activities related to WikiLeaks. On 16 August 2012, Foreign Minister Patiño announced that Ecuador was granting Assange political asylum because of the threat represented by the United States secret investigation against him and several calls for assassination from many American politicians. In its formal statement, Ecuador reasoned that "as a consequence of [Assange's] determined defense to freedom of expression and
James Ball (journalist) graduated from City in 2008 with a diploma in magazine journalism with a focus on investigative journalism. After leaving university and whilst working for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on iraqwarlogs.com, Ball was approached in November 2010 by Julian Assange and invited to work as the in-house journalist for WikiLeaks in the UK where he began working on the Iraq War documents leak. He described his days there as "long and erratic", complicated when a European Arrest Warrant was issued for Assange which lead to extradition proceedings known as the Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority. Ball later expressed criticism of