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UN torture envoy calls for ‘full accountability & compensation’ after Sweden drops rape probe towards Assange
The UN’s Particular Rapporteur on torture has referred to as for a “full investigation” into the function Sweden performed in driving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange into asylum and eventual custody, after the rape case towards him was dropped.
Swedish prosecutors introduced on Tuesday that they’d drop a doubtful rape inquiry towards Assange, as oral testimony towards the writer had “weakened,” and corroborating proof was not robust sufficient to pursue a case. A Swedish arrest warrant was issued towards assange in 2010, and a British court docket upheld a choice to extradite him in 2012. Threatened with what many noticed as a politically motivated extradition, Assange sought refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.
“Right now’s collapse of Sweden’s #Assange investigation was inevitable,” rapporteur Nils Melzer tweeted on Tuesday. “Given its gross arbitrariness, there should now be a full investigation, and accountability & compensation for the hurt inflicted on #JulianAssange.”
Right now’s collapse of Sweden’s #Assange investigation was inevitable. Given its gross arbitrariness, there should now be a full investigation, and accountability & compensation for the hurt inflicted on #JulianAssange https://t.co/4YGDjxNCww
— Nils Melzer (@NilsMelzer) November 19, 2019
Melzer had beforehand claimed that Assange was subjected to “psychological torture” and had his due course of rights “systematically violated” by the governments of Britain and Sweden. The WikiLeaks founder continues to be languishing in a most safety unit at Belmarsh jail, awaiting a listening to on extradition to the US, the place he probably faces 175 years behind bars for publishing leaked army paperwork.
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In a doc 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 maintain the case towards Assange alive within the face of exculpatory proof.
With the rape case towards him dropped, some commentators have warned that the trail to extradition to the US might now be clearer. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson instructed supporters that their focus ought to now shift to a very powerful “menace” that Assange was “warning about for years: the belligerent prosecution of the USA and the menace it poses to the First Modification.”
