Shitty roommate and brilliant legal tactician Julian Assange's ploy to assure his freedom from persecution by suing the only country in the world willing to shield him from those longing to throw him in the clink has hit a tiny snag: a language barrier. According to the English-speaking Assange, his self-righteous blather differs from what the rest of the English-speaking world gets along with:
From The Sydney Morning Herald:
The first hearing in Julian Assange's lawsuit against Ecuador's Foreign Affairs Ministry was suspended as the WikiLeaks founder was unable to understand his translator, and the judge called for a replacement fluent in "Australian."
Speaking from Ecuador's Embassy in London via Skype, Assange said the court-appointed translation service was "not good enough." Judge Karina Martinez said that it was indispensable that Assange testify, and said the court had erred by appointing a translator who only spoke English, apparently under the impression that Australian dialect is unintelligible to other anglophones.
Sure.
Once Assange finds himself an Australian translator, the courts will go forward with his suit against the Ecuadorian government. They took away his Internet! They want him to clean his room! They've been sheltering him from European law enforcement in their London Embassy since 2012! The nerve.
Unsurprisingly, Ecuador is less than impressed with their long-term political houseguest filing suit against them. In response to Assange's whinging, the nation's rolled back their offer to assist him with negotiating his fate with the British government.
I don't normally go in for courtroom drama, but I am so here for this shit.
Image: by Cancillería del Ecuador - https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgcomsoc/14933990406/, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link
