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
Julian Assange in August 2012 and has remained in the Embassy of Ecuador in London since then. Assange has held Ecuadorian citizenship since 12 December 2017. During the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, WikiLeaks hosted emails sent or received by candidate Hillary Clinton from her private email server when she was Secretary of State. After the Democratic Party, along with cybersecurity experts, claimed that Russian intelligence had hacked Clinton campaign-related e-mails and leaked them to WikiLeaks, Assange said Clinton was causing "hysteria about Russia". He consistently denied any connection to or cooperation with Russia in relation to the leaks. On 19 May