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Swedish prosecutors drop rape investigation involving WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange
By Ellen Whinnett of News Corps Australia.
JULIAN Assange has given a clenched-fist salute as he welcomed a Swedish decision to drop a rape investigation against him as “an important victory”.
Ecuador urged Britain to “grant safe passage” out of the country to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after Sweden dropped a warrant that drove him to take refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy.
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“The European Arrest Warrant no longer holds. The UK must now grant safe passage to Mr Julian Assange,” Minister Guillaume Long wrote on Twitter.
Swedish prosecutors earlier announced that had dropped a seven-year rape investigation into Mr Assange.
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But the WikiLeaks founder says his legal fight is not over and he cannot forgive the “terrible injustice” done to him across the last seven years of his life.
Appearing on a balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on Friday the 45-year-old told supporters and a large media throng he had been detained and slandered as his children grew up without him.
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“That’s not something I can forgive, it’s not something I can forget.” Mr Assange been holed up in the embassy since mid-2012 when he sought asylum there to avoid extradition to Sweden to face accusations he raped a woman in 2010 in Stockholm.
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Earlier, Swedish chief prosecutor Marianne Ny said at a press conference in Stockholm this that she believed, “based on the evidence, that probable cause for this crime still exists.’’
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But she concluded that Mr Assange would not be returned to Sweden with co-operation from Ecuador, in whose London embassy Mr Assange has been holed up since 2012.
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“My assessment is that the transfer cannot be executed in the foreseeable future,” Ms Ny said.
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Mr Assange tweeted his anger at being “detained for seven years”.
“Detained for 7 years without charge by (sic) while my children grew up and my name was slandered. I do not forgive or forget,” he wrote.
The decision also angered the lawyer representing his alleged rape victim.
Lawyer Elisabeth Fritz told the independent: “It is a scandal that a suspected rapist can disregard the judiciary and thus avoid trial.
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“Proof of evidence in the case is available and that evidence should have been tried in court the wait has been long."
The lawyer said prosecutors should not have “given up the case” before it reached court and accused Mr Assange of deliberately obstructing the judicial process because he was “afraid”.
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Juan Branco, a lawyer representing Mr Assange, said he would now seek political asylum in France, though did not elaborate on how he planned to get there without being arrested.
It is still unlikely Mr Assange will leave the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he has been holed up for five years, because the US remains interested in charging him over the release of secret documents.
