ASSANGE CAN BE ARRESTED

An arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder has been upheld in Sweden

Stockholm, Sept. 16: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faced another setback in his legal standoff with Sweden on Friday after an appeals court rejected his request to lift an arrest warrant for him over a 2010 rape accusation.

The Stockholm appeals court upheld a district court’s ruling to maintain the European arrest warrant, and also rejected Assange’s request to hold a hearing over the matter.

Assange “is still detained in absentia”, the court said, adding that it “shares the assessment of the district court that Julian Assange is still suspected on probable cause of rape... and that there is a risk that he will evade legal proceedings or a penalty.” Assange’s lawyer Per Samuelson said he would appeal against the ruling.

The 45-year-old Australian has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since June 2012, seeking refuge there after exhausting all his legal options in Britain against extradition to Sweden.

Assange has refused to travel to Stockholm for questioning over the rape allegation, which he denies, due to concerns Sweden will extradite him to the United States over WikiLeaks’ release of 5,00,000 secret military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is the eighth time the European arrest warrant has been tested in a Swedish court. All of the rulings have gone against Assange.

The appeals court said Assange’s four-year embassy sequestration “is not a deprivation of liberty and shall not be given any importance in its own right in the assessment of proportionality.” Assange’s lawyers had urged Sweden to follow the nonbinding ruling of a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which said his confinement in the embassy amounted to arbitrary detention by Sweden and Britain.

Even if the warrant were lifted, Assange is still liable to arrest in London for having evaded justice after his appeals against extradition were rejected. — AFP

ASSANGE is accused of having sex with a WikiLeaks supporter without a condom while she was asleep on August 17, 2010 during a trip to Stockholm

THE STATUTE of limitations on the rape allegation, which could lead to up to 4 years in prison, expires in August 2020