One Nation Leader Senator Pauline Hanson appears to be labouring under a new and rather strange delusion – that Julian Assange is being held captive as a political prisoner in the Embassy of Ecuador in London and has been convicted of a serious criminal offence in the United States of America in absentia.
Rather oddly she fails to mention the fact that in 2012 he breached English bail conditions and this is the reason he cannot leave the embassy as he will inevitably be re-arrested due to an outstanding extradition request in relation to a Swedish investigation into rape allegations.
To date Assange has not been formally charged with any offence in Sweden or America, therefore their are no grounds for the out-going U.S. president to offer him the "presidential pardon" suggested by Hanson or the president-elect to consider doing so once he assumes office.
The current legal impasse may be getting closer to a resolution without Senator Hanson’s intervention, as Sweden’s public prosecutor’s office has confirmed that it will finally question Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London sometime this week.
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