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Sweden drops rape investigation against Assange

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Update: 2017-05-19 08:10:09
Sweden drops rape investigation against Assange Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

Sweden's director of public prosecutions has decided to drop the rape investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Marianne Ny said his arrest warrant was being revoked as it was impossible to serve him notice of his alleged crimes, reports the BBC.

Assange, 45, has lived in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012, fearing extradition to Sweden would lead to extradition to the US.

Police in London said they would still be obliged to arrest him if he left.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) said Assange still faced the lesser charge of failing to surrender to a court, an offence punishable by up to a year in prison or a fine.

But the UK has not commented on whether it has received an extradition request from the US, where Assange could face trial over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents.

Assange's Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelson, said the prosecutor's decision on Friday represented “a total victory” for his client.

The plaintiff in the rape case was “shocked” by the decision, her lawyer said, and maintained her accusations against Assange, Agence France-Presse reported.

At a press briefing on Friday, Ms Ny said that by remaining in the embassy in London Assange had evaded the exercise of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) that would have seen him extradited to Sweden.

The rape allegation followed a Wikileaks conference in Stockholm in 2012. Assange always denied the allegations against him, saying sex was consensual.

He also said the case was politically motivated, as it followed massive Wikileaks dumps of secret US military reports that year.

BDST: 1810 HRS, MAY 19, 2017
AP

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