WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange to face questioning over rape claims

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will be questioned in the Ecuadorian embassy in London next month over rape allegations, the Ecuadorian prosecutor’s office said.

Swedish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Assange in August 2010 based on allegations of sexual assault by two female Wikileaks volunteers in the country and have for years sought his extradition. Ecuador said last month it would allow an interrogation of Assange.

The announcement comes a week after Sweden renewed its calls for Ecuador to go ahead with the interrogation. Sweden and Ecuador had signed an agreement for cooperation and mutual legal assistance on criminal matters.

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Published 8:03 AM EDT, Tue September 13, 2016

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According to a statement released Monday evening, Ecuadorian prosecutor Wilson Toainga Toainga will lead the interrogation October 17, based on questions sent by Swedish authorities, and DNA samples may be taken from Assange.

Ecuadorian authorities will allow two Swedish officials to be present during the interrogation, the statement said.

The Australian-born Assange, 45, denies the allegations and has been holed up at the embassy since 2012. He has said he fears an extradition to Sweden could lead to another extradition to the United States, where he could face the death penalty if he is charged and convicted of publishing government secrets through WikiLeaks.

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Published 8:03 AM EDT, Tue September 13, 2016

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Swedish authorities said in August 2015 that they were discontinuing their investigation into suspected sexual molestation and unlawful coercion allegations as the five-year statute of limitations had been reached.

In July, Assange made headlines again after WikiLeaks published emails and voicemails leaked from the Democratic National Committee.

Maximum sentence of six years

On a separate matter, the Swedish Court of Appeals announced Tuesday it would rule on Assange’s appeal to rescind his detention order this Friday. Assange’s first appeal was denied in May.

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Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny told reporters last week that the maximum sentence in rape cases is usually six years, though in Assange’s outstanding case she estimated a potential sentence of 18 months to two years.

Since WikiLeaks launched in 2006, it has published thousands of classified government documents, diplomatic cables and videos.

Julian Assange gestures from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on April 11, 2019. Assange, founder of the website WikiLeaks, has been a key figure in major leaks of classified government documents, cables and videos.

Assange holds a copy of The Guardian newspaper in London on July 26, 2010, a day after WikiLeaks posted more than 90,000 classified documents related to the Afghanistan War.

Assange attends a seminar at the Swedish Trade Union Confederation in Stockholm on August 14, 2010. Six days later, Swedish prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest based on allegations of sexual assault from two women. Assange has always denied wrongdoing.

Assange, in London, displays a page from WikiLeaks on October 23, 2010. The day before, WikiLeaks released approximately 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq War.

Assange and his bodyguards are seen after a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2010. It was the month WikiLeaks began releasing diplomatic cables from US embassies.

Assange sits behind the tinted window of a police vehicle in London on December 14, 2010. Assange had turned himself in to London authorities on December 7 and was released on bail and put on house arrest on December 16. In February 2011, a judge ruled in support of Assange's extradition to Sweden. Assange's lawyers filed an appeal.

In October 2011, a month after WikiLeaks released more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables, Assange speaks to demonstrators from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Assange leaves the High Court in London in December 2011. He was taking his extradition case to the British Supreme Court.

Assange leaves the Supreme Court in February 2012. In May of that year, the court denied his appeal against extradition.

Assange addresses the media and his supporters from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on August 19, 2012. A few days earlier, Ecuador announced that it had granted asylum to Assange. In his public address, Assange demanded that the United States drop its "witch hunt" against WikiLeaks.

Assange speaks from a window of the Ecuadorian Embassy in December 2012.

Assange addresses the Oxford Union Society from the Ecuadorian Embassy in January 2013.

Assange appears with Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino on the balcony of the embassy in June 2013.

Assange speaks during a panel discussion at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2014.

Assange attends a news conference inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2014.

Assange is seen on a video screen in March 2015, during an event on the sideline of a United Nations Human Rights Council session.

Assange, on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy, holds up a United Nations report in February 2016. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said that Assange was being arbitrarily detained by the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Assange speaks to the media in May 2017, after Swedish prosecutors had dropped their investigation of rape allegations against Assange. But Assange acknowledged he was unlikely to walk out of the embassy any time soon. "The UK has said it will arrest me regardless," he said. "The US CIA Director (Mike) Pompeo and the US attorney general have said that I and other WikiLeaks staff have no ... First Amendment rights, that my arrest and the arrest (of) my other staff is a priority. That is not acceptable."

Assange was seen for the first time in months during a hearing via teleconference in Quito, Ecuador, in October 2018. The hearing was then postponed due to translation difficulties.

A van displays images of Assange and Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who supplied thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Friday, April 5. A senior Ecuadorian official said no decision has been made to expel Assange from the embassy. According to WikiLeaks tweets, sources had told the organization that Assange could be kicked out of the embassy within "hours to days."

A screen grab from video footage shows the dramatic moment when Assange was hauled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy by police on April 11, 2019. Assange was arrested for "failing to surrender to the court" over a warrant issued in 2012. Officers made the initial move to detain Arrange after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited authorities into the embassy, citing the Australian's bad behavior.

Assange gestures from the window of a prison van as he is driven into Southwark Crown Court in London on May 1, 2019, before being sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaching his bail conditions in 2012.

A sketch depicts Assange appearing at the Old Bailey courthouse in London for a ruling in his extradition case on Monday, January 4. A judge rejected a US request to extradite Assange, saying that such a move would be "oppressive" by reason of his mental health.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

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In 2007, it posted a procedures manual for Camp Delta, the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

Three years after that, the site posted more than 90,000 classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan. It was described as the biggest such leak since the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War.

WikiLeaks has also published almost 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq War, providing insights into how many Iraqi civilians have been killed and accounts of abuse by Iraq’s army and police.

Assange, who has vowed to release more information to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, has been doing media interviews via satellite from the embassy.

CNN’s Claudia Rebaza and journalist Angela Dewan reported from London. Journalist Per Nyberg reported from Sweden.