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Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said British authorities were “making a big mistake” by not letting Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks, out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, RIA Novosti reported. 

Assange, 41, has been hiding at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid his extradition to Sweden, where he faces a rape trial that he calls politically motivated.

“Possibly some day Britain will realize that it is making a big mistake and violates human rights in regard to someone, who deserves freedom,” Patino said in an interview with Democracynow news portal.

Patino said that in a recent conversation with British Foreign Secretary William Hague he asked his colleague what Britain was waiting for in regard to Assange. “Are you waiting for Assange to get old and die in our embassy?”

Assange was granted asylum in Ecuador in August but he still faces arrest the minute he steps out of the embassy building.

His whistleblowing site WikiLeaks made an enemy of the US government in 2010, when it leaked hundreds of thousands of American diplomatic cables. The US authorities have not ruled out requesting his extradition from Sweden.