Julian Assange Releases Rape Case Statement: "I Am Entirely Innocent"

بقلم: Pavel Jacomino
2016-12-09 15:34:59

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London, December 9 (RHC)-- Exiled Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has released his full testimony recently given to Swedish authorities over rape allegations.  Going public for the first time on the matter, Assange says that the statement proves that he is “entirely innocent.”          

The 19-page statement documented responses he gave to Swedish prosecutors while being questioned at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on November 14 over allegations that he committed rape while in Sweden in 2010. 

The testimony detailed his relationship with a woman identified as SW, who Assange said he had consensual sex with on four or five occasions.  Assange said text messages between him and SW showed that the relationship was “clearly consensual sex between adults.”  Assange said that after sleeping together they were “on good terms.”         
  
Assange was accused of starting to have sex with the woman while she was asleep, which constitutes rape under Swedish law.  Assange said that he was “certain SW was not asleep.”         

Assange recalled that after hearing the rape accusations and the news of police “hunting” him across Stockholm, he offered to testify.  "I immediately made myself available to Swedish authorities to clarify any questions that might exist, although I had no obligation to do so,” he said.         

The 45-year-old Australian national said that he released the statement so people can know the truth “about how abusive this process has been,” arguing that the allegations, amounted to “six years of unlawful, politicized detention without charge.”          

The whistleblower has always maintained his innocence, saying that the sexual encounters in question were consensual.  He has claimed that the allegations are trumped up and part of a campaign to facilitate his extradition to the United States to face trial for leaking thousands of secret documents to the public. 

"Furthermore, in the past, the prosecution has fed partial information to tabloids that politically oppose me,” Assange added.  Julian Assange also criticized Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, who he did not believe was “acting in good faith or with the objectivity and impartiality required of her office.”         

Julian Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador and has been holed up in the South American country’s embassy in London since July 2012, fearing extradition to the United States.   If convicted on pending charges in the U.S., he could face up to 45 years in prison after WikiLeaks released classified documents and cables relating the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2010.  



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