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Agence France-Presse

Swedish prosecutors on Friday dropped a seven-year rape investigation targeting Julian Assange, a legal victory for the WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012.
But British police said they would still arrest Assange if he tried to leave the embassy, saying he had breached the terms of his bail by refusing to turn himself in when an arrest warrant was issued in 2012.

Friday was the deadline for the Swedish public prosecutor’s office to either renew the pan-European arrest warrant or lift it.
Marianne Ny, Sweden’s director of public prosecution, said in a statement that the rape investigation was dropped because “there is no reason to believe that the decision to surrender him to Sweden can be executed in the foreseeable future”.
“In view of the fact that all prospects of pursuing the investigation under present circumstances are exhausted, it appears that it is no longer proportionate to maintain the arrest of Julian Assange in his absence,” she added.
Arrest of WikiLeaks founder Assange is a ‘priority’, says US Attorney General, as reports say charges loom
Shortly after the announcement, Assange posted on Twitter a picture of himself smiling broadly, without comment. A lawyer on Assange’s legal team, Per Samuelsson, told Swedish radio the decision was “a total victory”, saying that Assange was “of course happy and relieved”.
Samuelsson also said that the decision meant Assange “is free to leave the embassy whenever he wants”, though he later told the TT news agency that he did not know when Assange might leave.
“What I do know is that Sweden does not stop him from doing it. Sweden is out of the game,” he said.
Another lawyer, Christophe Marchand, told AFP that “We have been waiting a long time for this decision”.
“Julian Assange has been a victim of a huge abuse of procedure. We are very pleased and very moved, as this marks the end of his nightmare.”

pic.twitter.com/dDvB1Vekhg
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) May 19, 2017

The accusation against Assange dated from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint.
She accused him of having sex with her as she slept without using a condom despite repeatedly having denied him unprotected sex.
The 45-year-old Australian has always denied the allegations, which he feared would see him extradited to the United States and put on trial over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents.
In November, Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren was present during Assange’s questioning at the Ecuadorian embassy as she posed questions through an Ecuadorian prosecutor.

Swedish prosecutors received a translation of the interrogation four months later, but “all materials were translated into Spanish then into English then back into Spanish then into Swedish,” Ny said, making it difficult for the investigation to move forward.
On Friday, Assange’s accuser called the prosecutor’s decision a “scandal”, her lawyer said on Friday.
“It is a scandal that a suspected rapist can escape justice and thereby avoid the courts,” the lawyer, Elisabeth Fritz, told AFP in an email. “My client is shocked and no decision to [end the case] can make her change that Assange exposed her to rape,” she said.
The investigation had suffered from multiple procedural complications since it began.
The statute of limitations on the rape allegation expires in August 2020.
In a letter sent to the Swedish government on May 8, Ecuador condemned “the obvious lack of progress” in the investigation despite Assange’s questioning in the presence of the Swedish prosecutor at the embassy in November 2016.

Swedish judges had also refused to take into account the opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 said Assange was effectively “arbitrarily detained” by Sweden and Britain and called for the arrest warrant to be annulled.
Assange’s Swedish lawyer last month filed a new motion demanding that the arrest warrant be lifted after US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in April that arresting Assange would be “a priority”.
Ecuador decides its future, and maybe Assange’s, in run-off
“This implies that we can now demonstrate that the US has a will to take action ... this is why we ask for the arrest warrant to be cancelled so that Julian Assange can fly to Ecuador and enjoy his political asylum,” he told AFP at the time.
But the British police have said they will arrest Assange as soon as he walks out of the embassy because he broke his conditions for bail – a relatively minor offence under British law – by failing to surrender on June 29, 2012 for extradition to Sweden.

Assange was arrested by Britain in December 2010 and released on bail while fighting the extradition order to Sweden, a bid that finally failed in June 2012 when Britain’s Supreme Court declined to reopen the appeal.
Shortly afterward, he lodged his request for asylum in Ecuador and fled to the country’s embassy in London. A spokesman for Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service told AFP his case would be referred to a judge, and he could face a maximum jail term of one year.


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WikiLeaks

Sweden drops rape probe against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange but he’s still wanted in the UK

epa05973661 (FILE) - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Supreme Court in London, Britain, 02 February 2012 (reissued 19 May 2017). According to a statement by the Swedish prosecutor's office on 19 May 2017, Sweden has dropped a rape probe against WikiLeaks founder Assange. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA *** Local Caption *** 51841044

A photographer stands outside of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Friday May 19, 2017. Sweden's top prosecutor says she is dropping an investigation into a rape claim against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after almost seven years. Assange took refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London in 2012 to escape extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sex-crime allegations from two women. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

epa05973809 Police outside the Ecuadorian embassy where Julian Assange is staying, in London, Britain, 19 May 2017. Swedish prosecutors have dropped their rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to news reports. EPA/ANDY RAIN

Assange's twitter account

Arrest of WikiLeaks founder Assange is a ‘priority’, says US Attorney General, as reports say charges loom

Wikileaks' founder and editor in chief Julian Assange is seen on screen during a videoconference on tax evasion in Madrid, Spain, on March 31. Photo: EPA

A February 2016 file image shows the Embassy of Ecuador in London where Julian Assange has been taking refuge. The WikiLeaks founder may find his residency in jeopardy after upcoming elections in Ecuador. (Xinhua/Han Yan) (Photo by Xinhua/Sipa USA)

FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2016 file photo, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks from the balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Two media reports say U.S. prosecutors are preparing or closely considering charges against the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, including Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

In this April 18, 2017 file photo Attorney General Jeff Sessions prepares to speak before a meeting of the Attorney General's Organized Crime Council and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Executive Committee to discuss implementation of the President's Executive Order 13773, at the Department of Justice in Washington. Hawaii's Democratic lawmakers are criticizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions after he expressed amazement on a radio show that a "judge sitting on an island in the Pacific" could stop the president's travel ban. U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono on Thursday tried to give Sessions a civics lesson on Twitter, saying Hawaii has been a U.S. state for 58 years. (AP file Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump tweets support for Julian Assange, and fellow Republicans recoil in disdain

In this February file photo, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks from the balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Photo: AP

Vice President-elect Mike Pence, left, joins House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017, following a closed-door meeting with the GOP caucus. Pence and Ryan promised repeal of President Obama's health care law now that the GOP is in charge of White House and Congress. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2016, file photo, President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Hershey, Pa. Trump tweeted Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017, that the album sales of teenage classical singer Jackie Evancho have “skyrocketed” since he announced she would perform at his Inauguration. While some of the credit may be due to Trump’s announcement, Evancho’s sales could simply be a result of the holidays: She released a new album, “Someday at Christmas,” on Oct. 28, and she has other holiday albums in her catalog. The singer’s album sales could have also seen a boost thanks to her performance on “America’s Got Talent: Holiday Spectacular,” which aired on NBC on Dec. 19. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks in a video made available Thursday, saying his group will work with technology companies to help defeat the Central Intelligence Agency's hacking tools. Photo: AP

epa05839044 A general view on the entrance to the US Consulate General in Frankfurt Main, Germany, 09 March 2017. According to reports, documents freshly leaked by whistleblower platform WikiLeaks state the US consulate in Frankfurt, Germany is home to a 'sensitive compartmentalised information facility.' EPA/ARMANDO BABANI

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