Assange plans run for Australian Senate

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LONDON, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, said he wants to run for the Australian Senate.

Assange, in an interview with the Australian news outlet The Conversation, said the case against him in Sweden is "falling apart" and officials there should drop the charges. He has been charged with sexually assaulting two women, though Assange says the encounters were consensual.

Assange said once the charges are dropped he'll be able to leave the embassy, where he has lived exclusively after being granted protection for the last eight months.

After that, he will move back to his native Australia where plans have already been laid to create a WikiLeaks political party and run for a Senate seat against one of three Labor candidates in Victoria.

If he wins, Assange told The Conversation, the United States will be forced to back down on its threats to prosecute him for the massive document dump that revealed numerous secret diplomatic and military cables between America and its allies because it won't want to create an international controversy by prosecuting a sitting member of an ally's government.

"The party will combine a small, centralized leadership with maximum grass roots involvement and support," Assange said of his plans for Australian politics. "By relying on decentralized Wikipedia-style, user-generated structures ... the party will be incorruptible and ideologically united."