TIME’s December 13, 2010 cover
Trump Admin Attacks First Amendment with 17 New Charges Against Julian Assange
Trump also re-tweeted a Fox Business Network segment, featuring a video montage of Pelosi that was selectively edited together to show her stumbling over her words.
Harvard Professor Leah Wright Rigueur tells Ari Melber that while there have “always been dirty tricks in political campaigns,” Trump is “operating by a different set of rules” beliefs and values.
LONDON — Swedish prosecutors announced on Monday they are reopening an investigation into a rape allegation against Julian Assange, a move that could impact efforts to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States.
Speaking at a news conference in Stockholm, Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecutions, said there is “still a probable cause to suspect that Assange committed rape” and “a new questioning of Assange is required.”
Assange denies the allegations.
Last month, Assange was expelled from the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, where he had claimed refuge for nearly seven years, since Sweden initially requested his extradition. Assange was arrested by British police on April 11 and later sentenced to 50 weeks in a British prison for skipping bail.
Sweden discontinued its investigation in 2017 because authorities said they were unable to advance the case while Assange was holed up at the embassy.
The Swedish investigation has been reopened at the request of the alleged victim.Sweden reopens Assange rape case
Sweden’s state prosecutor said May 13 she would reopen the rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, which was dropped in 2017. (Reuters)
Earlier this month, Assange told a British court that he would not consent to being extradited to the United States, where he is wanted on a charge of conspiring with a former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack a Defense Department computer. U.S. officials have been investigating Assange and Manning for their roles in the release of classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010.
The U.S. government is expected to outline its formal case for extradition in a British court next month.
If Sweden does seek to extradite Assange — a logical step if it wants to move forward with the rape investigation — Britain would face two competing extradition requests. It would be up to Britain’s Home Secretary to decide which request, if either, to prioritize.
Extradition experts said that decision would likely rest on factors such as the gravity of the allegations, the chronology of events and which extradition request came first.
Rebecca Niblock, an extradition lawyer with the London-based firm Kingsley Napley, said the Swedish case would likely take precedence over the U.S. one. “It would be very difficult politically to say that a computer intrusion offence is more serious than an allegation of rape,” she said.
If Assange were extradited to Sweden, then the United States could still pursue an extradition request with Swedish authorities. In that scenario, Britain would have to give consent.
Persson, the Swedish prosecutor, said that following Assange’s arrest last month in London, “the circumstances in this case have changed.”
She said that according to information received from British authorities, Assange will “serve 25 weeks of his sentence before he can be released.”
[WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks prison for jumping bail]
She added: “I am well aware of the fact that an extradition process is ongoing in the U.K. and that he could be extradited to the U.S. In the event of a conflict between a European arrest warrant and a request for extradition from the U.S., U.K. authorities will decide on the order of priority. The outcome of this process is impossible to predict.”
