Prosecutor pressed to speed up Assange case

Published: 03 Feb 2014 17:15 GMT+01:00 Updated: 03 Feb 2014 17:15 GMT+01:00

The Swedish prosecutor handling the Julian Assange case lashed out on Monday to calls urging him to push on with efforts to interrogate the whistle blower over sex crimes allegations stemming from a 2010 visit to Sweden.

Assange, who is suspected of rape and sexual assault involving two Swedish women in connection with a visit to Stockholm in 2010, remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he has been for the last 18 months.

But Swedish MP Johan Pehrson, legal policy spokesperson for the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), said on Sunday there was no point letting such a case fester.

"This is an exceptional case," he said on the Agenda programme on Sveriges Television (SVT). "Which gets you thinking whether the prosecutor shouldn't take one more look at it and take care of it once and for all."

He added that the case had large political implications internationally, and that no one would benefit from it lying dormant. Other legal experts also joined calls urging Sweden's Prosecutor-General to take action in the case, with Anne Ramberg, the secretary general of the Swedish Bar Association (Advokatsamfundet), calling the past 18 months a "circus".

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Prosecutor pressed to speed up Assange case