He has been granted political asylum by Ecuador, claiming if he leaves the embassy he will be taken to the U.S. to be prosecuted for over secret papers published by WikiLeaks.
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The Ecuadorian attorney-general delivered a document agreeing to a request by the Swedish prosecutor to question Mr Assange.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said a letter has been sent by the Ecuadoran government to set up a meeting with Swedish officials at the South American country’s embassy in London.
Mr Assange has been living inside the embassy for over four years and has been granted political asylum by Ecuador.
He has offered to be questioned inside the embassy but the Swedish prosecutors only recently agreed.
Ecuador said Thursday it’s ready to set a date for Swedish prosecutors to question Julian Assange inside its London embassy a potential breakthrough in the yearslong global impasse over the WikiLeaks founder.
“The prosecutor has requested permission to carry out an interrogation, so it is of course good for the investigation if it can be held”, Karin Rosander, spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority, told AFP on Thursday.
The anti-secrecy campaigner, who denies the allegation, walked into Ecuador’s London embassy of his own free will four years ago, with Britain on the brink of sending him to Stockholm, and has not left since. “This is decisive to be able to take a decision whether to formally charge him or not”.
Rosander said the Swedish prosecutor is on vacation and no date has been set for the trip to London.
The statement added: “In line with this position, Ecuador proposed to Sweden the negotiation of an agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, which was signed last December and which provides the legal framework for the questioning”. The date of questioning has not yet been announced, but it will be in regards to an alleged rape Assange committed in Stockholm in 2010.
Assange has refused to travel to Sweden to face the allegation as he believes he will be taken to the United States because of the many leaks of classified documents by WikiLeaks in recent years.
In February, a United Nations panel said that Assange was arbitrarily detained by British and Swedish authorities since his arrest in 2010 and should be allowed to leave the embassy without facing arrest.
He has been holed up inside the embassy for more than four years to avoid being extradited to face justice.
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Its protection of Assange “shall continue while the circumstances that led to the granting of the asylum, particularly the fear of political persecution”, the foreign ministry said in its statement. The British and Swedish governments have rejected the non-binding findings of the U.N’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
