Assange rape charges dropped — but he’s not in the clear yet
Sweden drops the rape investigation against him, but UK police say if he leaves the London embassy, he will be arrested for breaching his bail conditions
London/Oslo — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is in self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, moved marginally closer to freedom on Friday when Swedish prosecutors moved to drop a rape investigation against him. The Australian was the world’s best-known activist hacker in 2012 when he walked into Ecuador’s embassy in London, applying for humanitarian asylum rather than face questioning in Sweden over accusations of rape and sexual molestation. Sweded prosecutor Marianne Ny said on Friday that her office will drop an investigation into Assange regarding suspected rape, according to an e-mailed statement. "The detention order has been revoked," according to the prosecutor’s memo to Stockholm’s district court. Considering that all possibilities to take the investigation further have been exhausted, it no longer appears "proportional to uphold the decision about detention of Julian Assange in absentia and maintaining the European detention order. I have, therefore, r...
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