Swedish Prosecutor Requests Arrest Warrant for Julian Assange

Stockholm, May 20 ( Prensa Latina) Swedish Public Prosecutor's Office filed an arrest warrant this Monday against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for alleged sexual offences he denies.

'I have asked the court in Uppsala (north of Stockholm) to arrest Assange in absentia, suspected of rape to a lesser degree for probable cause. If the court decides to arrest him, I will send an European arrest warrant for him to be sent to Sweden', prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson said in a statement.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said Assange's case has been 'mishandled at all times', denouncing that Ecuador will hand over to the United States on Monday the belongings left by the Australian journalist at the South American country's embassy in London after his arrest last month.

There has been considerable political pressure on Sweden to reopen its investigation, but there has always been political pressure around this case,' Hrafnsson said.

Assange was arrested on April 11 by British police at the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom after the government of Ecuador ended his seven-year asylum.

The cyberactivist is in a 50-week jail sentence in the United Kingdom for violating the terms of a bail bond in 2012, and also faces an extradition order to the United States, which wants to try him for spreading confidential information about U.S. national security.

In the case of a conflict between a European arrest warrant and an extradition order from the United States, British authorities will have to decide the order of priority, said the Swedish prosecutor.

Sweden reopened the case on May 13, since the accusation, which involves Assange in a minor degree of rape (for having unprotected sexual relations with a young woman while sleeping), is still in force until 2020.

The Public Prosecutor's Office filed legal actions against the computer programmer in May 2017, given the impossibility of advancing the investigations.