Swedish prosecutors will review a request to reopen a rape investigation closed in 2017 against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange after he was arrested by British authorities on Thursday.
“Following today’s media reports that Julian Assange has been arrested in London, the legal counsel in Sweden has requested that the Swedish preliminary investigation regarding rape be reopened,” Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson told Reuters.
“We will now look into the matter and determine how to proceed. We cannot pledge any time frame for when a decision will be made,” Persson added.
The request came from the attorney of one of the two unidentified women who accused Assange of rape and sexual assault.
“My client and I have just recieved [sic] the news that Assange has been arrested in London. It did understandably come as a shock to my client that what we have been waiting and hoping for since 2012 has now finally happened,” attorney Elisabeth Massi Fritz said Thursday on Twitter.
My client and I have just recieved the news that Assange has been arrested in London. It did understandably come as a shock to my client that what we have been waiting and hoping for since 2012 has now finally happened.
— Elisabeth Massi Fritz (@ElisabethMFritz) April 11, 2019
“We are going to do everything we possibly can to get the swedish police investigation re-opened so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape. No rape victim should have to wait 9 years to see justice be served,” she added.
We are going to do everything we possibly can to get the swedish police investigation re-opened so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape. No rape victim should have to wait 9 years to see justice be served.
— Elisabeth Massi Fritz (@ElisabethMFritz) April 11, 2019
WikiLeaks has been a sore spot for U.S. officials for the past decade as the organization has released damaging information against the military and government officials.
The WikiLeaks founder, already notorious for leaking of U.S. diplomatic cables in 2010, subsequently played a key role in Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections by releasing emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and other Democratic officials. The U.S. intelligence community concluded in a 2017 assessment that WikiLeaks was used by Russian intelligence to release information as part of an effort to elect President Trump. WikiLeaks denies this assertion.
Assange claimed asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy in June 2012, claiming a Swedish sex crime investigation was a ruse to extradite him to the United States over Chelsea Manning’s 2010 leak of military and diplomatic secrets. On Thursday, he was expelled from the embassy after Ecuador revoked his asylum, and federal prosecutors in Virginia revealed he was charged with conspiring with Manning to hack U.S. computer systems.
