Judge to decide next month on Assange

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for over five years because he fears extradition to the United States, will learn next month if he has succeeded in having a warrant for his arrest dropped.

Assange, 46, fled to the embassy in the wealthy Knightsbridge district of the British capital in 2012 after skipping bail to avoid being sent to Sweden to face an allegation of rape, which he denied.

The Australian-born Assange had feared Sweden would hand him over to the United States to face prosecution over WikiLeaks’ publication of a large trove of classified military and diplomatic documents — one of the largest information leaks in US history.

In May last year, Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation into the allegation and withdrew their European Arrest Warrant (EAW). But British police have insisted Assange would still be arrested for breaching bail conditions should he leave the embassy.

Forfeited bail

Yesterday, Assange’s lawyer, Mark Summers, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the withdrawal of the EAW meant the British bail arrest warrant could no longer apply.

“We say it’s lost its purpose and its function,” he said.

Summers’ argument was a technical one: that the purpose of the arrest warrant was to allow underlying legal proceedings to continue and not for bringing someone to court to face a separate bail offence.

In 2012, Assange and his guarantors forfeited more than £110,000 (Dh572,011) when he skipped bail and his defence team said he had already spent five-anda-half-years years in conditions that were “akin to imprisonment”.

“In all the circumstances, it is respectfully submitted that any public interest in maintaining this warrant ... has now been spent,” his lawyers said in written papers to the court.