The mother of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has arrived in Ecuador to urge Ecuadorian authorities to grant her son political asylum, CNN reported on Sunday.

Christine Assange, who arrived in the capital city of Quito to meet with the Ecuadorian authorities on Monday, told reporters she will appeal to Ecuador's stance on human rights during her meeting.

"Surely, the president [Rafael Correa] and his staff will make the best decision," state-run El Ciudadano website quoted Christine Assange as saying.

Assange has been hiding at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than a month to avoid his extradition to Sweden, where he faces a case in a rape trial that he calls politically motivated.

Assange’s whistleblowing site WikiLeaks made an enemy of the U.S. government in 2010, when it leaked hundreds of thousands of American diplomatic cables. The U.S. authorities have not ruled out requesting his extradition from Sweden.

Assange has requested asylum in Ecuador, whose president Correa is still considering the request.

If her son is sent to the United States, he "could expect a sentence of death or many years in prison with torture as they are doing now with Bradley Manning," Christine Assange was quoted by El Ciudadano as saying.

Manning is a U.S. Army intelligence analyst who is suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military and State Department documents while serving in Iraq. Many of the documents ended up on the WikiLeaks website.

He is being held on the charges of aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defense information and theft of public property or records. He could be sentenced to life imprisonment, if convicted.