Sweden Drops Rape Charges Against Assange; UN Says Charges Should be Investigated

UN torture envoy demands ‘full accountability & compensation’

after Sweden drops rape probe against Assange

FILE PHOTO: Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Assange demonstrate in front of the Ecuadorian presidential palace in Quito, 2018 © Reuters / Daniel Tapia

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture has called for a “full investigation” into the role Sweden played in driving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange into asylum and eventual custody, after the rape case against him was dropped.

Swedish prosecutors announced on Tuesday that they would drop a dubious rape inquiry against Assange, as oral testimony against the publisher had “weakened,” and corroborating evidence was not strong enough to pursue a case. 

A Swedish arrest warrant was issued against assange in 2010, and a British court upheld a decision to extradite him in 2012. Threatened with what many saw as a politically motivated extradition, Assange sought refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.

“Today’s collapse of Sweden’s #Assange investigation was inevitable,” rapporteur Nils Melzer tweeted on Tuesday. “Given its gross arbitrariness, there must now be a full investigation, and accountability & compensation for the harm inflicted on #JulianAssange.”

Melzer had previously claimed that Assange was subjected to “psychological torture” and had his due process rights “systematically violated” by the governments of Britain and Sweden. The WikiLeaks founder is still languishing in a maximum security unit at Belmarsh prison, awaiting a hearing on extradition to the US, where he potentially faces 175 years behind bars for publishing leaked military documents.

In a document tweeted by Melzer, the envoy accuses Sweden of “actively and knowingly” contributing to Assange’s torture, and accuses prosecutors there of working in tandem with Britain’s Crown Prosecutorial Service to keep the case against Assange alive in the face of exculpatory evidence.

With the rape case against him dropped, some commentators have warned that the path to extradition to the US may now be clearer. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson told supporters that their focus should now shift to the most important “threat” that Assange was "warning about for years: the belligerent prosecution of the United States and the threat it poses to the First Amendment."

MSM's Political Bias is Highlighted by BBC's Bonehead Decision

It is just pathetic what journalism has

descended into these days

BBC accused of ‘breaching code’ by putting Assange critic in charge of special on WikiLeaks founder

© Tolga Akmen / AFP

BBC’s Newsnight will air a special on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hosted by journalist John Sweeney, despite what the #FreeAssange campaign say are tweets in “clear breach” of the BBC objectivity standards by the journalist.

“John Sweeney put in charge of tomorrow's Julian Assange special despite (because of?) malicious tweets in clear breach of BBC code,” the #FreeAssange campaign tweeted.

The campaign, which has more than 790,000 followers on Twitter published a list of tweets in which the BBC journalist repeatedly mocks and calls the Wikileaks founder a “Russian agent,” a “Kremlin asset” and Vladimir Putin’s most “useful idiot”. But, despite Sweeney’s personal feelings about Assange being on full display all over Twitter, he will still host the special on the whistleblower.

The #FreeAssange campaign has traded barbs with Sweeney on Twitter in recent days, calling the BBC employee a “UK state TV propagandist”. Sweeney responded to say that the campaign’s characterization of him was “twaddle”.

Assange has been living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for six years and fears extradition to the United States over millions of leaked documents and classified US military footage. Recent reports have suggested that due to his deteriorating health, Assange may be leaving the embassy soon.

The Courage Foundation, which fundraises for the legal defense of whistleblowers, said the conditions in which Assange is living with “no access to sunlight” are having a serious impact on his “physical and mental health”.

Sweeney has a history of making his personal feelings about various political figures clear. A look at his Twitter profile shows that he has also retweeted numerous comments highly critical of UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and that he appears to have somewhat of a fixation with Russia.

Sweeney made headlines in 2014 for “doorstepping” Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to ask him whether he “regrets the killings in Ukraine”. Putin stopped to answer the question through a translator.

An article in the UK’s Independent newspaper at the time said that Sweeney had “a reputation for sailing close to the wind”.

Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, tweeted that her son is “sick, in pain & suffering” and labelled BBC journalists involved with the special “career building cowards” who want to “kick him when he's down”.