ABC (Australia) reports
Swedish prosecutors said they had dropped investigations into allegations of sexual assault made in 2010 against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange because they had run out of time to bring charges.
"Now that the statute of limitations has expired on certain offences, I am obliged to drop part of the investigation," prosecutor Marianne Ny said.
But prosecutors said they would continue with investigations over a further allegation of rape against Assange, also made in 2010.
...
They have a further five years to bring any charges over an allegation of rape.
In other news, Sweden and Ecuador have agreed to hold talks aimed at paving the way for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to be questioned over allegations of sexual assault, with 9news reporting that
Assange has challenged Swedish prosecutors to come to his refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to take his statement on sex attack claims.
...
The 44-year-old Australian, who has been living at the embassy for more than three years, said in a statement on Thursday that he was an innocent man and hadn't been charged."Come to the embassy to take my statement or promise not to send me to the United States," he said, saying the actions of Swedish prosecutors were "beyond incompetence".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:11PM
How many charges does he still need to have pending to earn his keep by maintaining an air of trendy aloof rebel?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:31PM
None from Sweden needed as long as million$ of bobbies are standing outside the embassy, waiting to arrest him for breaking bail conditions.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:40PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:48PM
I see you've adopted the "UK.gov" moniker ;)
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(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday August 13 2015, @10:21PM
There's also lots of potential for geek humour, of course.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:51PM
Yeah, they screwed up with those 2-letter country codes. It would have been better if they were all three letters instead; much less ambiguity that way, for only one extra character. Then you're have "usa", "can", "mex", "deu" (Germany), "bel", "fra", "ita", "rus", "irq", etc. I'm not sure what UK would be under that scheme though, maybe "uki"? (for United Kingdom and Northern Ireland)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @12:06AM
ISO 3166-1 define 3 unique identifiers: alpha-2, alpha-3 and numeric. The United Kingdom is GB, GBR, and 826, respectively.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Friday August 14 2015, @06:40AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday August 14 2015, @08:53AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Friday August 14 2015, @10:36AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Informative) by MrNemesis on Friday August 14 2015, @01:51PM
The .uk versus the .gb ISO 3166 debate is an interesting quirk and a side-effect of the fact that the Joint Academic NETwork [wikipedia.org] pre-dates the domain name system and most of the internet. JANET mail addresses [soylentnews.org] were basically backwards as we understand them today - username@uk.ac.someuniversity so when DNS and the internet came along it essentially became a backwards compatibility/interop hack to reverse the direction. Hence the use of .uk instead of .gb (especially since Ukraine didn't really have much say in the discussion at the time). Incidentally as well as being responsible for the .ac.uk domains Janet also manages .gov.uk.
Source: buying one of the salty old CS bods a pint in the student union.
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Friday August 14 2015, @05:46PM
I agree. I would much prefer my tax money spent on something more worthwhile, perhaps glitter on every dog turd in every street in the UK.
Or to put it another way, stop wasting my money on this shit. If Sweden (and by extension the USA) insist on continuing with this stupidity, the UK should be billing them for it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:53PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:27PM
Can you be specific?
The story I heard was the exact opposite. [google.com]
...and I have never heard anything about his having to post bail.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:39PM
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/08/julian-assange-supporters-ordered-forfeit-bail [theguardian.com]
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @02:46AM
No one has the balls to charge him with a crime, yet somehow there is bail involved.
The Swedish gov't ALREADY questioned him and told him he could leave the country.
...then, all of a sudden, his initial interrogators are called massively incompetent.
The gov't who made the screwup COULD go to where he is and do another interview--but they won't.
This is clearly not about a criminal offense.
This is evil political bullshit with the USA behind it.
Every official involved in this deserves a slow, ugly, painful death.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday August 14 2015, @08:56AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @10:06AM
They told him he could leave.
He left.
By what twisted logic is he required to return?
Let me remind you again that HE HAS NOT BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME.
As stated, the correct tack would be to have the party that reversed its position making the effort required in pursuing this further.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @09:20AM
Maybe it's cheaper with boobies? Not those, you dirty you, these! [wikipedia.org]