Ecuador said it would let Swedish officials interview Julian Assange at its embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks frontman has been sheltering for the past four years.
The Ecuadoran Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade late on Wednesday said in a statement that a letter has been sent by the Quito government to set up the meeting.
“In the coming weeks, a date will be established for the proceedings to be held at the Embassy of Ecuador in the United Kingdom,” the statement read.
Photo: EPA
Prosecutors in Sweden have said they want to interview Assange in connection with a 2010 rape allegation against him.
“The prosecutor has requested permission to carry out an interrogation, so it is of course good for the investigation if it can be held,” Swedish Prosecution Authority spokeswoman Karin Rosander said yesterday.
However, she said the exact date of the interview had not been set.
“The information we have received from Ecuador is that they are favorable to an interrogation and they will get back to us about the exact details,” Rosander said.
She said the questions would be asked by an Ecuadoran prosecutor, but added: “Swedish prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and a police investigator will take part.”
Through his attorneys, Assange said he welcomed the development.
“Julian Assange’s defense team welcomes the fact that steps are finally under way to take Mr. Assange’s statement, a request that Mr Assange has asked of the Swedish prosecution since August 2010,” his lawyers said in a statement.
It also said the Australian had long sought the opportunity to testify in the case, but that “the Swedish prosecutor has refused to accept a statement by video conference, affidavit or other standard means.”
Assange, 45, sought refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London in June 2012 after exhausting all his legal options in Britain against extradition to Sweden.
He continues to challenge extradition to Sweden to be questioned by prosecutors.
Assange has said he fears that if he were sent to Sweden to face trial, he could be extradited to the US to be tried over WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents and face a long prison sentence or the death penalty.
Ecuador in the past has said it does not want to interfere with Sweden’s rape investigation.
The Quito government has said it would support Assange’s transfer if Stockholm could provide guarantees that he would not be sent to the US for prosecution over WikiLeaks’ release of 500,000 secret military files.
Authorities have said the statute of limitations for charges against Assange runs out in 2020.
The former computer hacker on Wednesday appealed a Stockholm district court’s decision to maintain a European arrest warrant against him over the rape allegation,
The anti-secrecy campaigner, who denies the rape allegations, walked into Quito’s London embassy of his own free will four years ago, with Britain on the brink of sending him to Stockholm, and has not left since.
Last month, a Swedish district court maintained a European arrest warrant against Assange, rejecting his lawyers’ request to have it lifted.
However, a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in February ruled in a non-binding decision that Assange’s confinement in the Ecuadoran embassy amounted to arbitrary detention by Sweden and Britain.
Britain and Sweden have angrily disputed the UN group’s findings.
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