The news that Julian Assange is being released creates reactions – due to the now time-barred sexual offences he was previously investigated for in Sweden.
"Evidence existed" writes Elisabeth Massi Fritz, who represented the woman who reported Julian Assange for rape in August 2010.
During Julian Assange's visit to Sweden in August 2010, the WikiLeaks founder becomes suspected of sexual offences against two women. He is arrested in absentia in November 2010 – and then a protracted investigation ensues. Assange takes refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London, and the Swedish investigation into sexual offences is both dropped and reopened several times.
There will never be a trial in a Swedish court, notes lawyer Elisabeth Massi Fritz disappointedly in a text message to TT.
"It would have been of great importance to have the evidence tested in a Swedish court. For a plaintiff, it is extremely important."
In August 2015, the charges of unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual harassment by a woman became time-barred.
The fourth charge, the suspected rape, became time-barred five years later, in August 2020.
