A lawyer for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks frontman who has taken refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since June 2012, welcomed an offer by Swedish prosecutors on Friday to travel to Britain to question him on allegations of sexual assault, and suggested that the offer would be accepted.
Swedish officials had previously refused to conduct interviews in London. However, with some of the crimes set to reach their statute of limitations in August, the officials said that they had changed their minds, and that they had also asked for permission to take a swab of DNA from Assange. The move could unlock years of stalemate.
“My view has always been that to perform an interview with him at the Ecuadoran embassy in London would lower the quality of the interview and that he would need to be present in Sweden in any case should there be a trial in the future,” Marianne Ny, director of public prosecutions in Sweden, said on Friday in a statement.
“Now that time is of the essence, I have viewed it therefore necessary to accept such deficiencies in the investigation and likewise take the risk that the interview does not move the case forward,” she added.
Assange’s lawyer, Per Samuelson, said he had spoken to Assange early on Friday.
“This is what we have been asking for, for years, so finally the prosecutor is speaking the same language,” Samuelson said. “We are a little irritated that it has taken her so long to do.”
“We received the formal request from the Swedish prosecutor by e-mail,” he added. “In that e-mail, there are some preconditions, one of which is that both the Ecuadoran and the United Kingdom authorities approve the request. For us, she could come tomorrow, but since she demands that the two countries approve, that could take some time.”
Samuelson added, however, that he thought that both Britain and Ecuador wanted to resolve the situation and would not prevent an interview from taking place in London.
He also said the Swedish prosecutor already had access to a sample of Assange’s DNA.
“We do not know why she is asking for it once more,” he said, adding that he had not discussed that aspect of the request with Assange.
Samuelson said that Assange welcomed the change of position from the Swedish prosecutor.
“I am convinced that once the prosecutor hears him, she will understand that he is innocent and will drop the investigation,” he said.
In the statement, Ny said that if Assange agreed to the interview in London, it would be carried out by the supporting prosecutor to the case, Swedish Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren, along with a police officer.
Karin Rosander, director of communications for the Swedish prosecutor, said it was unclear how soon any interview could take place.
Assange is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct and rape involving two women he met during a visit to Sweden in 2010.
No charges have been brought formally, but that step is usually taken later in a criminal investigation in Sweden than in many other countries. In 2012, Assange lost an appeal in Britain against extradition to Sweden, prompting his request for refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where, under diplomatic protocol, Britain does not have jurisdiction.
Assange denies the allegations, but he has refused to go to Sweden to face them because he says he could then, ultimately, be extradited to the US. There, he might face trial over the publication on WikiLeaks of huge quantities of delicate information that caused acute embarrassment for the US and for other governments and revealed confidential details about diplomatic relations.
The Metropolitan Police in London have provided a 24-hour guard at a cost of about US$15 million since the operation began.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe last week told LBC Radio that officials were considering “how we can do that differently in the future, because it’s sucking our resources in.”
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