“It is now the task of the states of Sweden and the United Kingdom as a whole to implement the verdict”, he told a packed room of journalists in the British capital.
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Two years later, while on bail, he claimed asylum inside the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge. Both countries rejected the findings in the Assange case. Sweden says it plans to keep up its investigation of him.
Assange said he would have let the British police arrest him if the United Nations ruled against him. “Secondly, it’s not arbitrary”, Bring said.
The defiant computer hacker addressed supporters from the embassy balcony.
Once he left, it became much more complicated for Swedish prosecutors to determine if the evidence against him was convincing enough to merit a criminal charge.
The UK spokesman also cited the rape allegation and a European arrest warrant as part of their motive. The U.S. government has not revealed whether he has been indicted – grand jury proceedings are secret there – but has indicated that sensitive investigations into Assange and WikiLeaks have been made. “The only viable solution, for those who wish to comply with human rights, is to cancel the arrest warrant which is at this moment empty in content and void after the decision of the working group”.
Assange has always denied the allegations against him.
But Assange lost a series of legal attempts to block extradition. And British police could still act if U.S. authorities are seeking his arrest and extradition, which would likely be a lengthy process. He’s been there ever since, in a prolonged state of legal limbo, unable even to stroll to a corner store. Now, the panel has determined that Assange has “been subjected to different forms of deprivation of liberty” since his initial arrest back in 2010. The spokeswoman invoked a ruling handed down by the Swedish Supreme Court in May of 2015, stating that, after examining the facts of the case, the court had decided that Julian Assange must be detained. The ruling comes after WikiLeaks filed a complaint against Sweden and Britain to the United Nations group in September 2014, claiming his confinement in the embassy was unlawful.
The panel’s decision was not unanimous: Vladimir Tochilovsky, a Ukrainian member, disagreed with the other three voting members because he did not believe the group had a mandate to investigate the case because he did not believe Assange had been detained. Mr. Assange is free to leave the Embassy at any point.
“It’s a very long time to detain someone who has never been charged or questioned”.
Elisabeth Massi Fritz said it was “insulting and offensive” to her client to suggest a rape suspect should be compensated for withholding himself from justice for more than five years.
Reading a statement via a video link from the embassy, Mr Assange said the opinion of the panel was “vindication”, adding: “The lawfulness of my detention is now a matter of settled law”.
The Swedish foreign ministry’s legal chief, Anders Ronquist, added that Assange “is not being deprived of his liberty there due to any decision or action taken by the Swedish authorities”.
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Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark and Jill Lawless and Malin Rising in London contributed.
