He is on £240,000 bail put up by a coalition of right on types including; Michael Moore, Jemima Khan, Ken Loach, John Pilger, Tariq Ali, Sir Phillip Knightley; magazine publisher Felix Dennis, Nobel prize winner Sir John Sulston, former Labour minister and chairman of Faber & Faber publishing house Lord Matthew Evans and Professor Patricia David.

@iankatz1000 Yes. I had expected him to face the allegations. I am as surprised as anyone by this.

— Jemima Goldsmith (@Jemima_Khan) June 19, 2012

Oh well, it is only money…

UPDATE: This in from the Embassy of Ecuador:

Statement on Julian Assange

June 19, 2012
This afternoon Mr Julian Assange arrived at the Ecuadorian Embassy seeking political asylum from the Ecuadorian government.

As a signatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration for Human Rights, with an obligation to review all applications for asylum, we have immediately passed his application on to the relevant department in Quito.

While the department assesses Mr Assange’s application, Mr Assange will remain at the embassy, under the protection of the Ecuadorian Government.

The decision to consider Mr Assange’s application for protective asylum should in no way be interpreted as the Government of Ecuador interfering in the judicial processes of either the United Kingdom or Sweden.

Last month Assange sympathetically interviewed the socialist Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa for his TV show The World Tomorrow, broadcast on Russia Today. Ironically Ecuador has a poor record on human rights and freedom of the press…