Sweden reopens one of the lawsuits against Assange | Ret …

The Swedish prosecutor's office yesterday reopened the case for alleged violation of Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks leak site. Justice had closed the investigation two years ago and has a period of fifteen months, until August 2020, to decide the case, at the moment it prescribes the last of the crimes charged. The defense of Assange described the decision of the Swedish authorities as shameful.

This decision was motivated by the change of situation of the Australian journalist, who had been arrested a month ago by the British authorities at the Embbady of Ecuador in London, where he had taken refuge in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden. London police could enter to arrest the legation when the Ecuadorian government withdraws its diplomatic asylum. Assange, incarcerated in a maximum-security prison, was sentenced two weeks ago by a British court to 50 weeks in prison for violating probation conditions in 2012 and is waiting for the United Kingdom to rule on a claim. Extradition to the United States. filter secret documents in WikiLeaks.

The fact that the Australian journalist remains in detention makes it possible to present a new arrest warrant in absentia before the Swedish courts and a European arrest warrant, explained Deputy Attorney General Eva-Marie Persson, at the hearing. An audience. case "Today (for yesterday), I decided to reopen the investigation," announced the prosecutor. "Assange having left the Ecuadorian Embbady, ​​the circumstances are reunited to request its surrender (to Sweden) under a European arrest warrant and surrender, which could not be the case before April 11, "he explained. The prosecutor recalled that the investigation had not been suspended for lack of evidence, but for the impossibility of progress, while stressing that the Swedish courts had repeatedly concluded that the suspicions to his had the highest degree of likelihood. "It's not possible to predict the outcome of the process, but I think that a preliminary investigation can be conducted parallel to the case in the UK," said Persson, who considers that a new interrogation is necessary, even if it was willing to do so by videoconference.

The proceedings in Sweden were reactivated at the request of the lawyer of one of the plaintiffs, Elizabeth Mbadi Fritz, at the reopening of the case as a result of the detention in London. Assange, to whom Quito had withdrawn the asylum for allegedly violating the "international conventions and the protocol of" coexistence "in the diplomatic mission.Fritz was satisfied with the decision of the prosecutor and argued that this showed that" nobody n & # 39 is above the law, even if your name is Julian Assange ".

Sweden's Per E. Samuelsson, one of the journalist's lawyers, however, said the Swedish decision was shameful. "I've been very surprised, I think it's a shame for Sweden to reopen the investigation in this simple way.I think it's a crazy conclusion: we're talking about Events that occurred almost ten years ago and of a person likely to be extradited to the United States. "

The editor of WikiLeaks, Icelandic journalist Kristinn Hrafnsson, however, has a more optimistic view. He believes that the reopening of the case will allow Assange to clear customs and denies having avoided the questioning of the Swedish authorities, who investigated four crimes, including three already prescribed, while that of the violation will be in August 2020.

The Swedish public prosecutor's office issued a European arrest warrant against Assange in November 2010. A month later, London was arrested and a judicial process was started and ended in June 2012, when the Supreme Court reaffirmed the Extradition to Sweden and that the journalist has taken refuge in the Embbady of Ecuador.

The applicant, aged about 30 at the time, had met Assange at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm. She accuses him of having bad on the night of August 16, while she was sleeping without a condom, whereas she had previously rejected any unprotected relationship. Assange always baderted that the woman had consented to the relationship and agreed that no condom had been used. The Australian was also questioned for another alleged badual badault following a lawsuit brought by another woman for alleged events that occurred on August 13, 2010. But these facts were prescribed in 2015.

In the United States, the journalist is accused of criminal badociation in order to commit "hacking" for helping former US intelligence badyst Chelsea Manning to obtain a pbadword to access thousands documents considered very secret.

Assange refuses to be extradited to the United States, where he can be sentenced to a maximum of five years imprisonment.

Although the badysis of the extradition application process in the United States continues, the Swedish prosecutor's office has stated that in case of concordance between a European arrest warrant and a request for Extradition of the United States, it is the British authorities who set the priority. It remains to be seen who will win the showdown.