Lawyers for Julian Assange asked a Swedish court on Monday to overturn an arrest warrant for the WikiLeaks co-founder, following a ruling by a United Nation panel that his asylum in Ecuador's London embassy amounts to "arbitrary detention" as a result of the British and Swedish governments.
"We consider that there have arisen a number of new circumstances which mean there is reason to review the earlier decision," said Thomas Olsson, one of Assange's lawyers.
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Meanwhile, a second lawyer representing Assange said that he remained willing to be questioned in the Ecuadorean embassy.
However, Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny has said that Assange has voluntarily stayed away from justice by taking refuge in the embassy during the past 3.5 years, something both the U.N. and WikiLeaks founder dispute, She also considers that it has nothing to do with his legal situation in Sweden and has renewed attempts to question him. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 2012 when he secured political asylum from Quito to block potential extradition to the United States, where fellow whistleblower Chelsea Manning has faced what the U.N. said amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
"If our #Assange case isnt 'smooth' we'd be frozen out of US intel exchange & weapons sales" https://t.co/INp3sERVp5 pic.twitter.com/P0FFuLTyeg — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 18, 2016
The WikiLeaks founder fears that were he extradited to Sweden to be questioned for the rape allegation Sweden would extradite him to the U.S. at Washington's behest.
He was previously accused of sexual assault and unlawful coercion in Sweden, but Swedish prosecutors dropped the two allegations in 2015, as the five-year statute of limitations had expired. However, an outstanding rape allegation doesn't expire until 2020, though he has never been charged.
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