Today, Ecuador granted political asylum to Julian Assange, the founder of controversial website Wikileaks. Assange lost a legal battle weeks ago to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about sexual assault charges from two women. Since losing the legal battle, Assange has holed up in London’s Ecuadorean embassy, and he has now been there for eight weeks. Assange sought asylum because of his worry that he will be sent to the United States, where influential people are furious about the hundreds of thousands of secret US documents he leaked. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, who announced the asylum decision, said Assange would not get a fair trial in the United States, and could possibly face the death penalty if tried there. Just yesterday, the British government threatened to storm the Ecuadorean embassy and arrest Assange. Now, even though Ecuador has granted asylum, Britain still intends to follow through on its legal obligation to extradite him. Assange’s protection ends the moment he steps foot outside the embassy, and only begins again when he is on Ecuadorean territory. So in between, he is vulnerable to arrest. No one yet knows how Assange will attempt to leave the embassy, where he has been sleeping on an air mattress and continuing to oversee Wikileaks, but he can’t stay in there forever.