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Swedish prosecutor reopens Assange rape investigation, will seek extradition
Sweden's state prosecutor said on Monday she would reopen an investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and seek his extradition from Britain.
Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson told a news conference she would continue and conclude a preliminary investigation that was dropped in 2017 without charges being brought as Assange had taken refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
[...] The Swedish prosecutor's office said it would shortly request Assange be detained in his absence on probable cause for an allegation of rape and that it would issue a European arrest warrant - the process under which his extradition would be sought.
Please extradite me to Sweden and not the U.S.?
Also at BBC:
Wikileaks said the reopening of the rape case would give Assange "a chance to clear his name". "There has been considerable political pressure on Sweden to reopen their investigation, but there has always been political pressure surrounding this case," its editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, said in a statement.
A lawyer for Assange told Swedish broadcaster SVT that the decision was "embarrassing for Sweden", adding that his client wanted to resolve the case but feared being extradited to the US.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday May 14 2019, @12:09PM
I figure he'll arrive in Stockholm and go straight from the plane head first into a sack and across the tarmac to another plane standing by with the engines running.
The Swedes have had this case open three times now over, what, nine years already. Neither woman was interested in pressing charges, the whole investigation is made up by the second prosecutor. So the main goal of this case may just be ongoing harrassment and fodder to keep Wikileaks and its successes out of the day's press and thus out of collective memory. You see a lot of tools around on social control media using those inaccurate articles to further smear him and build up quite a narrative of falsehoods.
Assuming on the other hand that he does not go into a sack, it might be possible to put the whole Swedish mess behind him [craigmurray.org.uk] and the press can move on.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.