It looks like Julian Assange's two-year wait in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London is finally drawing to a close, after a surprise invitation by the UK government for the Swedish prosecutor to come interview him in London:
Sweden’s chief prosecutor said on Tuesday she was seriously considering an invitation by the British government to question Julian Assange in London, before a court ruling in Sweden on whether to lift the warrant for his arrest.
The Foreign Office said on Tuesday it would welcome a request by the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to question Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy and would be happy to facilitate such a move, which is seen by Assange’s lawyers as an important step towards breaking the deadlock surrounding the case.
The appeal court in Sweden is due to rule as soon as next week on a request by Assange’s lawyers that the warrant against him be rescinded, but the timing of the Foreign Office’s remarks appeared to be accidental....
"These are matters for the [Swedish] prosecutor to decide on, but if she wished to travel here to question Mr Assange in the embassy in London, we would do absolutely everything to facilitate that. Indeed, we would actively welcome it," foreign minister Hugo Swire said on Tuesday in the House of Commons.
Ny said through a spokeswoman that the remarks were "all news to her", and she would probably respond to them publicly within the next couple of days.....
[I]n documents submitted to the Appeal Court, the prosecutor states she has “continually, over the past two years, tested the conditions and the practical possibility for conducting the interrogations and other necessary investigative measures in Great Britain”.
Perhaps the election last month in Sweden that saw a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens come to power, replacing the former right-wing coalition, has helped break down the impasse.
Swedish legal opinion at a senior level has this year swung against the prosecutor’s decision not to travel to London to interview Assange, with Anne Ramberg, head of the Bar Association, calling the current impasse a “circus”.
Ramberg told the Guardian on Tuesday: “Many voices in Sweden take a view along the same lines [as the Foreign Office]. It is time for this longstanding matter to be brought to a fair and proportionate end.”
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said its willingness to help Swedish officials to question Assange was not a change of policy but it was “likely” that the message had not been made clear amid all the other questions about the case.
Uh-huh.
It's been a puzzle why the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, has not taken the opportunity to interview Assange in London at any time in the past two years, insisting that he must be extradited to Sweden for questioning instead:
As for Swedish law, there are no provisions preventing prosecutors from interrogating suspects abroad. Doing so is, in fact, a routine matter. An example: In late 2010, at roughly the same time that Ms. Ny decided to issue a European Arrest Warrant for Assange, Swedish police officers went to Serbia to interview a well-known gangster suspected of involvement in an armed robbery. The interview was conducted in co-operation with Serbian police. Thus, at the same time that Ms. Ny claimed it was an impossibility to interview the founder of Wikileaks in London, her colleagues were busy interrogating an infamous gangster in Serbia.
Apparently it's likely that once Assange is interviewed,
no charges will be laid as there is no evidence of a crime.