Julian Assange is to be investigated in Sweden in a rape case dating from August 2010, prosecutors announced on Monday.
The WikiLeaks founder, currently in Belmarsh prison in London, now faces likely extradition from Britain.
“My assessment is there is still probably cause [to investigate] rape and a lesser offence,” said Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecutions.
“An arrest warrant was issued and Julian Assange was declared an internationally wanted suspect” in November 2010, added Persson.
After Assange skipped bail in the UK and went into hiding at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, “the extradition order was impossible to enforce”, Persson added.
In November 2016, Assange was interviewed by Ecuadorian prosecutors after an agreement was reached between Sweden and Ecuador to co-operate in criminal investigations.
“Mr Assange was recently sentenced to 50 weeks in prison [in the UK],” said Persson. “He will serve 25 weeks before he is eligible for release.
“My intention is to submit to the district court today to appoint a public defender. It is also my intention in the near future [to ask] that the district court order Mr Assange remanded in absentia,” said Persson, speaking in Stockholm.
“I will proceed to issue a European arrest warrant providing for him to be extradited to Sweden after serving his sentence in the UK.”
But the US also wants to extradite Assange over his publishing of leaked military videos showing the killing of civilians in Iraq. “The US will submit a formal extradition request to the UK no later than 14 June 2019,” Persson noted.
So which extradition request will be given greater priority?
“This decision will be left entirely to the British authorities,” said Persson. “If he’s extradited to Sweden, he must not be extradited to a third country without the consent of the British authorities.
“A future Brexit will not, according to available information, impact on the case.”
Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer said he was “very surprised” by the decision and said his client was innocent.
“I do not understand the Swedish prosecutor’s… reasoning for reopening a 10-year old case,” Per E Samuelsen told Swedish broadcaster SVT.
Swedish prosecutors had filed preliminary charges in 2010 after two women said they were victims of sex crimes commited by Assange when he visited the country.
Seven years later, a case of alleged sexual misconduct was dropped when the statute of limitations expired.
That left a rape allegation, and the case was closed as it couldn’t be pursued while Assange was living at the embassy and there was no prospect of bringing him to Sweden.
The statute of limitations on that case doesn’t expire until 17 August 2020.
“While Mr Assange is serving his sentence in the UK, I intend to futher the investigation as much as possible,” said Persson. That could include interviews via video link, she added.
“I would like to make the following very clear: My decision to re-open the preliminary investigation is not an indication of whether to file an indictment with the court,” Persson concluded.
On World Press Freedom day, earlier this month, WikiLeaks said the legal campaign against Assange was “a dangerous attack on all publishers”.
“It is Julian Assange who is facing persecution today, but this an attack on every single journalist who has ever published material, and every publisher and broadcaster around the world who understands the public interest in doing so,” read a statement.
He has denied the allegations against him, asserting that they were politically motivated and that the sex with the two women who have accused him was consensual.
The 47-year-old Australian met the women in connection with a lecture in August 2010 in Stockholm. One was involved in organising an event for Sweden’s centre-left Social Democratic Party and offered to host Assange at her apartment. The other was in the audience.
Assange left Sweden for Britain in September 2010. In November that year, a Stockholm court approved a request to detain Assange for questioning.
He was arrested by British police on April 11 after a change in leadership in Ecuador revoked his political asylum. A letter signed by more than 70 MPs, across the political divide, urged Home Secretary Sajid Javid to prioritise any extradition request to Sweden over any from the United States.
from Viral News Reports http://bit.ly/30fdFaF
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