Offering asylum to the man responsible for the biggest-ever spilling of U.S. secrets was apparently too attractive for Correa to resist.

It let him stake a claim to moral high ground, associating himself with a man whose adherents see him as a digital age Robin Hood crusading against abuses of big governments and corporations and who believe the Swedish extradition request is a pretext for shipping Assange to the United States to face a kangaroo court.

U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House's Western Hemisphere subcommittee, has met with Correa several times and believes he understands the gamble.

"He's a very smart guy and this wasn't done in a vacuum," Engel said. "The reason is to kind of be the head of the poke-the-United States-in-the-eye group."

That club includes Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba -- the latter formerly the top Latin American destination for people fleeing U.S. and European prosecution.