Compliance Management, Privacy, Threat Management

Swedish appeals court nixes Assange’s plea

A Swedish appeals court nixed Julian Assange's request to have a warrant for his arrest struck down.

Assange had asked the court to rescind the warrant, which keeps him tethered to the Ecuador embassy in the U.K. where he sought asylum more than two years ago. Ostensibly, Assange is wanted for questioning by Swedish authorities for crimes, including rape. He contends that the accusations are trumped up and are being used as an opportunity to get him back to Sweden where he could be extradited to the U.S. on charges regarding WikiLeaks.

U.S. prosecutors have wanted to question Assange regarding any connections he had with Bradley Manning, the Army soldier who ferreted some 250,000 secret records from a State Department database and delivered them to WikiLeaks. 

“There is a great risk that he will flee and thereby evade legal proceedings if the detention order is set aside,” the court said in a statement, according to a report in Wired. “In the view of the court of appeal, these circumstances mean that the reasons for detention still outweigh the intrusion or other detriment entailed by the detention order.”

In view of the court's ruling, Assange will have to remain in Ecuador's embassy in the U.K. or risk being picked up by authorities. He claims that he has been willing to meet in London with authorities to be questioned, but they have not agreed. However, last month, according to Wired, the U.K. Foreign Minister Hugo Swire said that if the Swedish prosecutor wanted to "question Mr Assange in the embassy in London, we would do absolutely everything to facilitate that."

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