Assange lawyers ask Swedish court to drop warrant

Stockholm – Lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said yesterday they had asked a Stockholm court to lift a pan-European warrant for his arrest over a 2010 rape allegation. His lawyers were basing their request on a February 5 non-binding legal opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which said Assange’s confinement amounted to an arbitrary detention by Sweden and Britain.

“I think (the opinion of the UN working group) is an important fact and should be taken into account,” Tomas Olsson, a lawyer for Assange, told AFP.

“We want them to retry the decision and overrule it,” he said.

The 44-year-old Australian sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in June 2012 after exhausting all his legal options in Britain against extradition to Sweden over his alleged sex crimes, which he has denied.

Appeals to have the warrant dropped were also denied.- AFP.