Julian Assange May 2017, the Swedish authorities dropped their investigation against Assange, claiming they could not expect the Ecuadorian Embassy to communicate reliably with Assange with respect to the case. Chief prosecutor Marianne Ny officially revoked his arrest warrant, but said the investigation could still be resumed if Assange visited Sweden before August 2020. "We are not making any pronouncement about guilt", she said. On 19 June 2012, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño announced that Assange had applied for political asylum, that his government was considering the request, and that Assange was at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Wikileaks insiders stated that
Julian Assange areas of economic cooperation, counternarcotics assistance and the return of a USAID mission to Ecuador depended on Assange being “handed over to the proper authorities”. On 19 October 2018, BBC News reported that Assange was starting legal action against the government of Ecuador, accusing it of violating his "fundamental rights and freedoms". Later that month, an Ecuadorian judge ruled against him, saying that a requirement for Assange to pay for his Internet use and clean up after his cat did not violate his right to asylum. Pamela Anderson, a close friend and regular visitor of Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy,