Swedish court hears Assange bid to drop arrest warrant

Stockholm: A Swedish court began a hearing on Wednesday to determine if an arrest warrant against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for alleged sexual assault should be dropped.

A decision to cancel the warrant would be a step towards enabling the 43-year-old Australian to walk out of the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he has been holed up for the past two years in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Prosecutors demanded that the warrant should be upheld, Swedish news agency TT reported.

But Assanges lawyer Thomas Olsson said it should be repealed with immediate effect, TT said, adding that the proceedings continued behind closed doors.

The warrant was issued in late 2010 for incidents of rape and sexual molestation that allegedly took place that year claims Assange denies.

Assange sought refuge in Ecuadors embassy in Britain in June 2012 after having exhausted all legal options at British courts to avoid being extradited to Sweden.

He has said he fears that being sent to Sweden would be a pretext for transferring him to the United States, where WikiLeaks sparked an uproar with its publication of thousands of secret documents.

WikiLeaks repeatedly drove the global news agenda with startling revelations of the behind-the-scenes activities of governments around the world.

From confidential assessments by US diplomats of Chinese leaders to revised body counts in Iraq, the WikiLeaks documents provided the public with an unprecedented look under the hood of international politics.

Assanges legal team has argued that Swedish prosecutors have dragged out the case for an unreasonably long period by not interviewing him at the embassy.

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Swedish court hears Assange bid to drop arrest warrant