‘Assange will cooperate with Sweden, but fight US warrant’
LONDON : Julian Assange would cooperate with Swedish authorities if they reopen a rape case against him but will continue to resist any bid to extradite him to the United States, his lawyer said on Sunday.
“We are absolutely happy to answer those queries if and when they come up,” Jennifer Robinson told Sky News television about the rape claims. “The key issue at the moment is US extradition, which we have warned about for many years,” she added.
The WikiLeaks founder is in custody in London awaiting sentencing for breaching his British bail conditions in 2012 by seeking refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden.
He was arrested at the embassy on Thursday after Ecuador gave him up, and is now also fighting a US extradition warrant relating to the release by WikiLeaks of a huge cache of official documents.
The Australian has always denied the claims of sexual assault and rape in Sweden. The first expired in 2015 and the other was dropped in 2017, but the alleged rape victim has now asked for the case to be reopened.
If Stockholm makes a formal extradition request, the British government will have to decide whether to consider it before or after that of the United States.
Robinson said Assange would seek assurances from Sweden that he would not be sent on to America, saying: “That is the same assurance we were seeking in 2010 and the refusal to give that is why he sought asylum.” She added: “He’s not above the law. Julian has never been concerned about facing British justice or indeed Swedish justice.This case is and has always been about his concern about being sent to face American injustice.”
BRING HIM HOME, DAD CALLS ON AUSTRALIA
Assange’s father on Sunday called on Australia to bring his son home, saying he was shocked to see his son’s condition after his arrest in London last week.
“DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs) and the prime minister should in a nuanced way do something,” John Shipton, who was secretary of the Wikileaks Party when his son tried to run for a senate seat in 2013, told Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun.