Rape case revival
Revisiting Assange rape probe eyed in Sweden
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is in a world of trouble.
Assange, already behind bars in London, could face resurrected rape charges in Sweden even as U.S. authorities prepare to fight for his extradition and prosecution in a Virginia federal court.
Swedish prosecutors pondered Friday the possibility of reviving their sex-crime investigation of Assange — the allegation that sent him into seven years of hiding in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecution, EvaMarie Presson, said in a statement that her office received a request from the accuser’s lawyer late Thursday night to reopen the Assange sexual assault probe. The case was dropped in 2017, with officials declaring the probe was stymied by Assange’s asylum in Britain’s capital.
Assange spent his day in a cell at Belmarsh Prison, home to 900 inmates in central London. Among its more notorious previous residents were former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and British pedophile Richard Huckle.
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, after meeting Friday with Assange behind bars, said he was struggling with shoulder and tooth pain after his time inside the embassy — where he had slathered the walls with his own feces before the Ecuadorans tossed him out Thursday.
Assange, 47, should have easier access to medical treatment and his lawyers, according to Hrafnsson — who added the conditions are still less than optimal.
“Comparing one prison to another and giving a star rating is not really what’s on my mind,” he said. “What’s on my mind is there’s an innocent man in prison for doing his job as a journalist, and that’s an outrage.”
Assange, viewed by some as a hero for exposing U.S. secrets and denounced by others for boosting the presidential hopes of Donald Trump in 2016, found some support Friday from British politicians opposed to turning him over to the U.S.
“It is this whistleblowing into illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale that has put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the U.S. administration,” said Diane Abbott, the Labour Party spokeswoman for domestic affairs.