Sweden Reopens Julian Assange Rape Case Probe

Stockholm: Swedish prosecutors on Monday reopened investigation into the rape allegation against WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, currently lodged at a high-security jail in the UK. Sweden’s Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Eva-Marie Persson announced the decision at a press conference here saying, “I have today taken the decision to reopen the preliminary investigation,” the Guardian reported

Prosecutors dropped the investigation in 2017 because they were unable to proceed while Assange stayed put at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The investigation could be reopened if the situation changed, they had said at that time. Assange, 47, was removed from the embassy last month after seven years as the Ecuadorian government withdrew his asylum protection, and was arrested for breach of bail conditions.

A lawyer for one of the women involved in the Swedish allegations subsequently asked for resumption of the investigation. Assange had also faced investigation for a second sex-related allegation, which was dropped in 2015 because time had run out. He has denied both allegations. In the US, he faces charges of conspiring with a former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified data. The charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. Assange is being held at the Belmarsh high-security prison in London after being sentenced to 50 weeks for a bail violation, the Guardian said. (IANS)

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