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Julian Assange tries to get into the public spotlight

by on13 February 2014



Starting legal battle against Sweden

After being out of the spotlight for a while, Julian Assange is attempting to get Sweden to start its investigations into his sex allegations while he is still locked up in the Ecuadorian embassy. His lawyers have written a scathing op-ed piece in a Swedish newspaper, demanding that the prosecutor presiding over the rape and sexual allegations case to question the WikiLeaks founder in London.

Thomas Olsson and Per Samuelsson wrote in the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) yesterday that Assange wants to be treated according Swedish law, all of a sudden. They claim that ynder Swedish law, investigations are allowed to be "adapted to the situation in which the investigated party finds himself" so that unnecessary inconvenience is not caused to the party involved. Prosecutor Marianne Ny has refused to interrogate Assange in London, stating that to do so would be against Swedish legal practice and would constitute special treatment, but Olsson and Samuelsson disagree. They seem to think that prosecutor Marianne Ny must fly out to the UK, interview him, and then charge him, where he can safely ignore them.

Olsson and Samuelsson suggest in the piece that Ny should be replaced by a "superior prosecutor" able to look at the case with "fresh eyes". However lawyer Elisabeth Massi Fritz representing the younger of the two alleged victims of Assange is also miffed at the media’s handling of the case. She said that the press keeps giving publicity to Assange, even when in sex cases people’s names are not mentioned. The lawyer representing the younger of the two women, Elisabeth Massi Fritz, criticised the media for naming Assange, since suspects and accusers are rarely named in the Swedish press.

She is also annoyed with Swedish politicians commenting on the case on a live national television debate in Sweden, about whether Sweden's Prosecutor-General should drop the investigation into Assange completely.

“Why have courts when we can hold votes in daily newspapers and televised debates?" Fritz wrote. "Why should an exception be made for Assange?"

Fritz agrees with the prosecutor that Assange should not be given special treatment.

“The only thing that is keeping Assange shut up in that embassy is himself."

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