STOCKHOLM — (AP) Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer Per E. Samuelson says it is a “day of victory” for the WikiLeaks founder after Sweden’s top prosecutor dropped an investigation into a rape claim against him.
Samuelson tells The Associated Press that “this was consensual sex between two adults and nothing else,” adding Assange was now “a free man.”
Samuelson says he spoke by telephone with Assange, who told him: “Yes, Per, it feels much better today. Finally we got there.”
Samuelson said Sweden’s judicial system “spoiled and wasted five, six years of his life … but he is happy today.”
A lawyer for the woman who alleges she was raped by Julian Assange says “it is a scandal that a suspected rapist can avoid the judicial system and thus avoid a trial in court.” Elisabeth Massi Fritz says her client is shocked but adds that “she can’t change her view that Assange has exposed her to a rape.”
Julian Assange’s lawyer is asking French president Emmanuel Macron to intervene in support of the WikiLeaks founder. Juan Branco told The Associated Press in Paris that he wants Macron to help Assange leave the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
Branco says: “We need a political intervention to make this situation end. He is the only political prisoner in Western Europe.”
Sweden’s top prosecutor says “costs were not a reason for putting down the investigation” of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Marianne Ny told a news conference: “When we investigate serious crimes, we do not consider the costs.”
In a written statement, officials said: “According to Swedish legislation, a criminal investigation is to be conducted as quickly as possible. At the point when a prosecutor has exhausted the possibilities to continue the investigation, the prosecutor is obliged to discontinue the investigation.
“At this point, all possibilities to conduct the investigation are exhausted.”
Sweden’s top prosecutor says the investigation of alleged sexual offenses could reopened if Julian Assange returns to Sweden before the statute of limitations lapses in 2020.
The prosecutor, Marianne Ny, told a news conference in Stockholm that she could make no judgment on Assange’s guilt or innocence. She says: “We don’t make any statement of guilty or not.”
However, British police say Assange still faces arrest for jumping bail if he leaves the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
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