Swedish Court Rejects Julian Assange’s Appeal to Dismiss His Arrest Warrant

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More than two years after Julian Assange sought protection at the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK, a Swedish court is still demanding he return to that country to face questioning in a sex crimes investigation.

Today a Swedish appeals court rejected Assange’s request to rescind the warrant for his arrest.

“In making this assessment, account must be taken of the fact that Julian Assange is suspected of crimes of a relatively serious nature,” the court said in its statement today. “There is a great risk that he will flee and thereby evade legal proceedings if the detention order is set aside. In the view of the court of appeal, these circumstances mean that the reasons for detention still outweigh the intrusion or other detriment entailed by the detention order.”

The ruling forces Assange to remain inside the embassy or risk arrest and extradition to Sweden. But new pressures on Swedish prosecutors could force them to travel to London to interrogate him instead of requiring him to travel to Sweden. Assange has resisted going to Sweden for fear that he would face further extradition to the U.S. where a grand jury investigation is ongoing.

Last month, the UK’s foreign minister threw a wrench into the matter when he announced that the British government would welcome a visit by Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to question Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy rather than force him to go to Sweden for questioning.

“These are matters for the [Swedish] prosecutor to decide on, but if she wished to travel here to question Mr Assange in the embassy in London, we would do absolutely everything to facilitate that,” UK Foreign Minister Hugo Swire said. “Indeed, we would actively welcome it.”

The prosecutor was taken aback by the statement and told the Guardian that she would consider the statement and respond publicly soon.

Swire insisted that his statement did not amount to a change in the UK’s position. He acknowledged, however, that the UK government might not have been clear about its stance in the past.

The appeals court in Sweden noted this matter in its ruling today, saying that the prosecutor had failed to examine alternative avenues for the investigation, which “is not in line with their obligation—in the interests of everyone concerned—to move the preliminary investigation forward.”

Assange has not been charged with any crime, but prosecutors got an arrest warrant issued for him after he left Sweden while the investigation was ongoing.

Assange asserts authorities told him he was free to leave, but when he did, they issued an arrest warrant for him. Assange sought exile from Ecuador because he believes the Swedish case is a trumped up attempt to get him extradited to the U.S. to face possible charges for his role in published documents leaked by Chelsea Manning.

Assange, in his appeal to rescind the warrant, argued that although he had made himself available for questioning in the UK, the Swedish prosecutor has refused to accommodate that offer. This shows, Assange’s attorneys argue, that the investigation “has not been conducted with the effectiveness and urgency which can be demanded,” and that what can be won by maintaining the detention order is not in proportion to the harm and damage the decision causes. that has deprived Assange of his liberty for more than two years.

The prosecutor told the appeals court, however, that she had “continually, over the past two years, tested the conditions and the practical possibility for conducting the interrogations and other necessary investigative measures in Great Britain.”

The head of the Swedish bar association called the showdown a “circus” and urged the prosecutor to compromise. “It is time for this longstanding matter to be brought to a fair and proportionate end,” Anne Ramberg, head of the bar association told the Guardian.