Julian Assange Hatches Plan to Get Out of Embassy

Julian Assange has a plan to finally escape Ecuador's embassy in London: Get elected to the Australian Senate. He started the process of becoming a political candidate in the Sept. 14 election last week, and he believes that if he's elected, both the US and Britain will back down from their respective espionage investigations so as to avoid starting an "international incident," as the Courier Mail puts it. As for the Swedish government's sex case against him, it's already "falling apart," Assange says, and he believes the government would drop it.

If he wins, Australian federal law would require him to take his Senate seat within two months. "The Senate could vote to evict me, but that would trigger a big political row," Assange tells The Conversation in an extensive interview. As for getting elected, he's certain his newly formed WikiLeaks Party will get the 500 "paid-up members" required to officially launch, and he plans to be just one of the candidates the new party fields. (More Julian Assange stories.)