How exactly do you think 'political persecution' works? When they come to arrest you, do you think they proclaim "We're politically persecuting you!" ?

Ecuador's justification is that they believe there is a chance that the USA is planning to extradite him from Sweeden and then charge him with a crime which is punishable by death. Ecuador believes that a death sentence is a violation of Assange's human rights.

Which is of course a highly suspect claim to make, since both Sweden and the UK do not extradite for crimes that are subject to the death penalty.

That is a pretty grand claim to make, when Sweden has conceded that they have participated in rendition from Sweden to Egypt that was in clear and blatant violation of both Swedish law and international treaties. They were censured by the UN for it. And those are only two cases where they were caught red-handed.

Sweden has done it before with the same laws that exist now. Simply put, there is no punishment if they would extradite Assange to the US.

But of course, they are not extraditing him for those crimes.

Just to clarify things there is no charge against Assange. Assange isn't accused of any crime.

Perhaps if there were Ecuadorian charges against Assange to which he could plead guilty and thus be a fugitive from international law, which would obviously require he be sent to Ecuador to serve time before going to Sweden for questioning.

I wonder how Britain would feel about it's international obligations under those circumstances.

Because that’s how it’s done in Sweden. He will only be charged after questioning.