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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: 4, Informative) by ledow on Tuesday May 14 2019, @03:01PM (2 children)
Sweden has to ask UK permission to further extradite him, and they are bound by substantially the same laws as the UK are.
It's almost like the whole "EU is one big place" laws actually benefit in this instance (and 99.99% of all other instances, but who's counting).
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday May 14 2019, @07:22PM
It may be something as simple as the prosecutor legitimately wants to take him back and complete the rape charge investigation. That's possible.
Anything past that, though, is something neither you nor I are likely to fully understand the machinations of unless you have specialist knowledge in international politics and jurisprudence.
Perhaps because of EU policy it might be easier to get him over to Sweden where he might be detained longer and/or it gives a card to play if the US attempt stalls - it only has so long before Assange's sentence expires on the bail jumping. Perhaps Sweden's laws on conspiracy are more favorable to proving what Assange is alleged to have done is a crime there (an essential element of extradition - proof that the alleged law broken is a crime in the extraditing country as well).
Maybe the US wants him extradited to Sweden so they can pull an extraterritorial interception and just take him - the US has tried that before [wikipedia.org], and has become more expert at it [wikipedia.org] since the botched first attempt. Things get ever so much dicier once a vessel (air or sea) is in international territory.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 14 2019, @09:30PM
So what you are saying is that Brexit has to happen before the UK can join the US in violating international human rights laws?