Justice for Assange

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On 11 May 2015 the Supreme Court of Sweden issued a split decision in the Assange case. Judge Svante O. Johanssons dissenting opinion argued that the detention order should be revoked because the actual harm and intrusion outweighed the reasons for a continued detention. Swedens Court of Appeal had previously rebuked the prosecutor in November 2014 for breaching her duty to progress the preliminary investigation. Read more. The Supreme Court accepted that the prosecutor had breached her duty for stalling for so long. However, the majority of judges argued that Julian Assange would continue to be detained in absentia without charge. The reasoning was that the court could overlook the fact that the preliminary investigation had been frozen for over four years now that the prosecutor had announced that she would accept to take Mr. Assanges statement in the embassy of Ecuador in London, where he has asylum.

Whats next?

The United Nations adjudicating body on arbitrary detention, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, is currently considering Julian Assanges filing, and a verdict is expected imminently.

Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, has detained without charge in one form or another since 7 December 2010. He is under the protection of the Ecuadorian embassy in London which has granted him asylum and recognised that he risks extradition to the United States for his publishing activities with WikiLeaks.

The US periodically confirms that a criminal national security investigation into Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is ongoing for example to a US court on 4 March 2015, and to the Washington Post on 28 January 2015.

In Sweden, Julian Assange is not charged with a crime. But in a highly unusual move, Sweden issued an Interpol Red Notice and a European Arrest Warrant, immediately after WikiLeaks began publishing a cache of 250,000 US Diplomatic Cables on 29 November 2010. Such warrants are usually issued for persons whose whereabouts are unknown. But Julian Assanges whereabouts were known (he had given a press conference and hundreds of interviews in London). His lawyers were in communication with the prosecutor and had communicated that he was available to answer questions from the Swedish prosecutor through standard means.

Questioning people within European borders is a routine and uncomplicated process, which is standardised throughout the European Union. Sweden often uses these means to question people.

In the initial ten days after 20 August 2010, the police opened the preliminary investigation, it was assigned to three different prosecutors in quick succession. The penultimate prosecutor found that the case had no basis, and that there were no grounds to place Julian Assange under a criminal investigation.

The final prosecutor however, Marianne Ny, took over on 1 September 2010 and reopened the investigation. The Swedish investigation has been frozen since 2010. In November 2014, Swedens Svea Court of Appeal ruled that the prosecutor had failed her professional duty to progress the investigation against Julian Assange.

Originally posted here:
Justice for Assange