Tobi Ijalana
Sweden’s prosecution authority on Monday reopened an investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange over allegation of rape.
This was made known by Wikileaks in a post on Twitter.
Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London last month, and was quickly found guilty of breaching his 2012 bail conditions.
An earlier attempt by the Swedish prosecution authority to investigate the alleged sex crime was dropped after Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, UK, in 2012.
A second sex crime allegation against Assange involving a separate Swedish woman cannot be reopened as the legal time-limit on pursuing a case has been exceeded, techcrunch.com said.
Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecution, said that any conflict between the European Arrest Warrant and an existing US extradition request for Assange would be decided by UK authorities.
“I am well aware of the fact that an extradition process is ongoing in the UK and that he could be extradited to the US. In the event of a conflict between a European Arrest Warrant and a request for extradition from the US, UK authorities will decide on the order of priority.
“The outcome of this process is impossible to predict. However, in my view the Swedish case can proceed concurrently with the proceedings in the UK,” said Persson in a statement regarding potential extradition conflict.
She also noted that UK authorities had told her office Assange must serve 25 weeks of his sentence before he can be released.
