LONDON (AP) – British police have removed its officers from outside the Ecuadorean Embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up since June 2012, but say they will still do their best to arrest him.
Police said Monday that because there is “no imminent prospect of a diplomatic or legal resolution to this issue” a round-the-clock police presence is “no longer proportionate.”
The 24-hour operation has been controversial in part because it is so costly. London’s Metropolitan Police says the operation cost 11.1 million pounds ($17.6 million) through April 2015.
The police force said in a statement that Assange is still subject to arrest for jumping bail and holing up in the embassy while wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations in Sweden. It said if he leaves the embassy, the force will “deploy a number of overt and covert tactics to arrest him.”
In August, Swedish prosecutors dropped cases of alleged sexual misconduct against the 44-year-old, but still want to question him about accusations of rape made after his visit to the country in 2010.