A Swedish prosecutor on Thursday requested that Julian Assange, the founder of whistle blowing website WikiLeaks, be detained over rape allegations, a charge he strongly denies.
The prosecutor's office began an investigation into allegations of rape against Assange, an Australian citizen, in September.
The prosecutor's office said in a statement it had now decided to seek to detain Assange on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. A court hearing on the request was due at 1300 GMT.
"The reason for my request is that we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet him to carry out the interrogations," said Marianne Ny, leading the case for the Prosecution Authority.
If the request is granted, authorities could issue an international arrest warrant for Assange, said Prosecution Authority spokeswoman Karin Rosander.
Remember, these allegations were made and then withdrawn due to lack of merit back in August. Now they are being made again. As I said then, any allegations of rape must be checked out. But given the public calls for Assange's incarceration for WikiLeaks itself and even calls for his outright assassination from the wingnut right, and given the history of our own intelligence agencies in this country, the fact that these allegations may be false must be at least a possibility.
However if the Swedes have enough evidence to prosecute, Assange must turn himself in. Period.
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2 comments:
Agreed. It does seem convenient that it comes up now (and for the second time!) but there is an obligation to check and make sure the right thing is being done.
I have to agree. If this comes to the court, it must be tried to the best extent possible.
But I still can't help but think that someone is trying to lean on them to tar Mr. Assange.
We will see.
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