Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on Monday tweeted a picture of his new companion, a 10-week-old kitten, presented to him by his children to keep him company in his Ecuadorean embassy where he has been holed up since 2012.
The 44-year-old intends to keep the world updated on his yet-unnamed companion via Twitter using the handle @EmbassyCat.
“New home! I’ve arrived!” his tweet read, along with a picture of him cuddling the kitten.
The female kitten, a descendant of the original European wildcat, sleeps in a top hat during the day and prowls the embassy at night.
Assange, who is under diplomatic asylum at the embassy, is wanted for questioning in Sweden over a sex allegation, which he denies. He believes if he leaves the embass,y he will be extradited to the US to be questioned over the activities of WikiLeaks.
A European arrest warrant remains in place, and he has now been living in the Ecuadorian embassy since June 2012, with the fourth anniversary of his refuge nearing next month. In February, a United Nations’ working group found that Sweden and the UK were violating his rights and should release him and award compensation for detaining him without charge.
Mr Assange’s lawyers have made an application to the courts in Sweden to enforce the UN group’s finding. The UK government had announced that it would formally contest the opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that Assange is a victim of arbitrary detention.
