The cost of keeping Wikileaks founder Julian Assange safe is a steep one.

Scotland Yard has now spent somewhere around 10 million pounds in its efforts to provide a 24-hour guard at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where the whistle-blowing Australian publisher and journalist has claimed asylum.

If he should leave the embassy, Assange would be arrested in connection to allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.

According to the BBC, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the Internet advocate of free speech should go to Sweden in order to "face justice."

The police said between June 2012 and October 2014, 7.3 million pounds werespent on policing Assange. There was an additional 1.8 million pounds for overtime protection.

Scotland Yard released the cost of keeping Assange safe, which is covered by a budget that goes toward policing at UK embassies, reached 9 million pounds in October of 2014. The cost is now expected to add up to about 10 million pounds.

So far, 10,000 pounds have been spent daily in efforts to protect Assange.

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson finds this all a bit appalling: "It is embarrassing to see the U.K. government spending more on surveillance and detaining an uncharged political refugee than on its investigation into the Iraq war, which killed hundreds of thousands."

On the "Call Clegg" show on LBC radio, Clegg called the situation "frustrating" for both the British taxpayer and the Swedish government.

"[Sweden] is a country of impeccable democratic credentials with a well-respected judicial system that says [Julian Assange] should go to Sweden to face very serious allegations," Clegg said. "Of course the right thing for him to do is to do that, is to face justice."

Assange has spoken negatively about Sweden in the past, accusing the country of having "imported Guantanamo's most shameful legal practice -- indefinite detention without charge."

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