Swedish officials dropped their seven-year rape investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday; a prosecutor said there is no possibility of arresting him “in the foreseeable future,” according to the Associated Press.
Assange no longer faces sex crime allegations in Sweden but he’s not completely in the clear, as he is still wanted for jumping bail in Britain back in 2012.
“This is a total victory for Julian Assange. He is now free to leave the embassy when he wants. We have won the Assange case. He is of course happy and relieved. He has been critical that it has lasted that long,” Attorney Per E. Samuelsson told Swedish Radio.
Samuelsson isn’t totally accurate with his comments. British police are no longer seeking him for extradition to Sweden but London’s Metropolitan Police force said that it “is obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the embassy,” according to the AP.
Assange could face a year in prison for the charges in Britain. He has been holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where officials wanted him to discuss allegations from two women that he committed sex crimes.
WikiLeaks tweeted about the situation quickly after Sweden dropped the investigation.
BREAKING: Sweden has dropped its case against Julian Assange and will revoke its arrest warrant
Background: https://t.co/UHj8QtwrTh
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 19, 2017
UK states it will arrest Assange regardless & refuses to confirm or deny whether it has already received an extradition request from the US.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 19, 2017
Assange’s WikiLeaks site famously published a series of leaked classified U.S. documents that were damaging to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Then-candidate Donald Trump said at one campaign rally in October, “WikiLeaks has provided things that are unbelievable.”
However, during a news conference last month, U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions said that the arrest of Assange is a “priority.” U.S. officials are also upset with Assange because WikiLeaks released sensitive documents related to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.