London police call off guard at Assange's Ecuador embassy bolt-hole

London's cash-strapped police will no longer keep officers stationed outside the Ecuadorean embassy to catch WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up inside for over three years, the force said on Monday.

However, the police said they would maintain a “covert plan” to arrest Assange, 44, who entered the embassy in June 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over a rape allegation, which he denies.

Assange says he fears Sweden will extradite him to the United States where he could be put on trial over WikiLeaks' publication of classified military and diplomatic documents five years ago, one of the largest information leaks in US history.

If he leaves, he faces immediate arrest for breaching bail conditions. London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has guarded the embassy round the clock for the last three years at an estimated cost of £12.6 million.

“Like all public services, MPS resources are finite,” it said in a statement. “With so many different criminal, and other, threats to the city it protects, the current deployment of officers is no longer believed proportionate.”