STOCKHOLM, March 10 /TASS/. Sweden’s Supreme Court on Tuesday demanded explanations from Swedish prosecutors on further investigation into the case of Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and the founder of the WikiLeaks website.
Late in February, Assange’s Swedish lawyers lodged an appeal with Sweden’s Supreme Court over a ruling of the Svea Court of Appeals, one of the six appellate courts in the Swedish legal system, that refused to recall an international arrest warrant for Assange last November. The lawyers called the Supreme Court’s attention to the fact that the prosecutors had been passive over the past four years.
"The most important thing for us is for how long this "legal uncertainty" will last. How long do we have to wait and what we should do if the court ruling is not implemented?" Assange’s lawyer Per Samuelsson told TASS adding that restrictions imposed on Assange were disproportionate to the crimes he was being suspected of.
Assange has been staying in the territory of the Ecuadoran embassy in London which granted him political asylum for more than two years.
Swedish prosecutors suspect Assange of committing a number of sexual crimes against two Swedish women in the summer of 2010 and are seeking his arrest.
At the same time, Assange’s lawyers said that Sweden’s investigation was not the reason behind Assange’s decision to turn to Ecuador for help. Assange fears that the Swedish authorities will extradite him to the United States where the Australian will face a long prison sentence and potentially capital punishment under a law on espionage for unauthorized publication of the U.S. State Department’s documents.