Swedish court rules against extraditing Assange

A Swedish court has ruled that Julian Assange should not be extradited to Sweden for a revived rape investigation, but should still be questioned in the case while he is imprisoned in Britain.

Uppsala:WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should not be extradited to Sweden for a revived rape investigation, but should still be questioned in the case while he is imprisoned in Britain, a Swedish court ruled on Monday.

The ruling by the Uppsala District Court doesn't mean the preliminary investigation must be abandoned, only that Assange doesn't face extradition to Sweden any time soon.

Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden's Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, said that she has not decided whether to appeal.

She said that she would issue a European Investigation Order in order to interview Assange, but she had not picked a possible date for the questioning in England.

The 47-year-old Assange was evicted on April 11 from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been holed up with political asylum since 2012.

He was immediately arrested by British police and is currently serving a 50-week sentence for jumping bail in 2012.

He is also fighting extradition to the United States, which accuses him of violating the Espionage Act by publishing secret documents acquired by hacking the Pentagon containing the names of confidential military and diplomatic sources.

The allegations two Sweden women made against Assange stem from a trip to Stockholm he made in August 2010.

One of the women was involved in organising a political event and offered to host Assange at her apartment, while the other woman was in the audience.

A police officer who heard the women's accounts decided there was a reason to suspect they were sex crime victims and handed the case to a prosecutor for further investigation.

Assange has denied wrongdoing, asserting that the allegations were politically motivated and that the sex was consensual.