STOCKHOLM, May 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Swedish prosecutors said Monday they
were reopening a 2010 rape investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange, hoping to bring him to justice before the statute of limitations
expires in August 2020.
“I have today decided to reopen the investigation… There is still
probable cause to suspect that Mr Assange committed rape,” the deputy
director of public prosecutions, Eva-Marie Persson, told reporters.
“The previous decision (in May 2017) to close the investigation was not
based on difficulties related to evidence, but on difficulties that blocked
the investigation.”
The Australian whistleblower, who hold himself up in the Ecuadoran embassy
in London for seven years to avoid a British extradition order to Sweden, was
arrested on April 11 after Ecuador gave him up.
A London court sentenced him on May 1 to 50 weeks in jail for breaching the
British order.
“Now that he has left Ecuador’s embassy, the conditions in the case have
changed and I am of the opinion that the conditions are in place once again
to pursue the case,” the prosecutor said.
The 47-year-old has always claimed the Swedish allegations were a pretext
to transfer him to the United States, where he fears prosecution over the
release by WikiLeaks of millions of classified documents.