LONGEST
Hungarian Catholic cardinal József Mindszenty, a staunch opponent of communism in the former Yugoslavia, was granted asylum in the US embassy in Budapest in 1956.
The small US embassy was denied planning permits to extend the building to accommodate the Cardinal in his 15-year-long stay.
Mindszenty fell seriously ill in the late 1960s and efforts renewed to allow him to leave to avoid his martyrdom there, but they ultimately failed.
Eventually, a compromise was reached whereby the Catholic church annulled the excommunications of his political opponents and Pope Paul VI declared him a “victim of history”.
He left the grounds for the first time in 15 years in September 1971.
SECOND LONGEST
Peruvian political leader Raúl Haya de la Torre was living in hiding for nine years until political events turned against him and he sought asylum at the Colombian embassy in Lima.
He remained there for five years from 1949 to 1954, when a ruling from the International Court of Justice allowed him to leave for Mexico.
HOLY ASYLUM
Venezuelan dissident Nixon Moreno took the unusual step of requesting asylum from the Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican's foreign embassy of the Holy See in Caracas.
Moreno was granted asylum in June 2008 where he stayed until March 2009, almost two years, when he was able to secure political asylum in Peru.
Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega reluctantly sought sanctuary at the Holy See's Apostolic Nunciature in Panama City when the United States invaded in 1989.
The US refrained from directly entering the embassy, instead used rock music as a psychological warfare weapon to force him to surrender ten days later, where he was taken to the US as a prisoner of war for prosecution.
LARGEST
In 1984, 25 Czechs entered and occupied a West German embassy in Prague successfully demanding asylum, while seven East Germans did so in the library of the United States Berlin embassy.
POLITICAL LEADERS
While Zimbabwe's then opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai did not directly seek asylum in the Dutch embassy in Harare in 2008, he sought refuge there, citing concerns for his safety until 2009.
He was then sworn in as prime minister in a power-sharing political arrangement.
RECENT ECUADORIAN OFFERS
Ecuador most recently granted asylum to former Belarusian policeman turned corruption whistle-blower Alexander Nikolaevich Barankov in 2010.
However that status seems likely to change.
Renewed diplomatic links between the two countries after a visit by President Alexander Lukashenko saw Barankov arrested and imprisoned in Ecuador.
He remains in custody awaiting a judge's ruling as early this week.
