STOCKHOLM: A Swedish prosecutor said on Tuesday she would not proceed with an investigation into an allegation of rape against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after a review of the evidence. Deputy chief prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson said that the complainant’s evidence was deemed credible and reliable, but that after nearly a decade, witnesses’ memories had faded. The move by the prosecutor heads off a possible dilemma for the British courts which could potentially have had to decide between competing extradition requests from the United States and Sweden. Assange is being held in a British jail pending a hearing in February on extradition to the United States, which wants him over 18 criminal counts including conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law. Since then, he has served a British jail sentence for skipping bail.

Source: New Strait Times November 19, 2019 14:26 UTC