STOCKHOLM - A Swedish court has rejected a
request to postpone a planned hearing to rule on the detention
in absentia of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as part of an
ongoing investigation into alleged rape, a defence lawyer for
Assange said on Tuesday
The Swedish prosecutor heading an investigation into the
rape allegation against Assange, which he denies, this month
filed a request with a local court for him to be detained with a
hearing scheduled for June 3.
Swedish defence lawyer Per Samuelson told Reuters he had
visited Assange in British custody on Friday after which he had
sought to have the hearing postponed.
"One of the reasons is that Assange's health situation on
Friday was such that it was not possible to conduct a normal
conversation with him," Samuelson said.
"I meant that it should be postponed until I had time to
meet again and go through the issues in peace and quiet. I
suggested no specific date and meant it should be postponed
until everything was ready, but the district court has now
decided that this won't happen."
The Uppsala district court, where the hearing is due to take
place, was not immediately available for comment. A prosecutors'
office spokesman declined to comment.
Sweden reopened the rape investigation in early May. It was
begun in 2010 but dropped in 2017 years after Assange took
refuge in Ecuador's London embassy. Assange was arrested in
London last month after spending seven years inside the embassy.
If the court order is granted, it would be the first step in
a process to have Assange extradited from Britain, where he is
serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail.
U.S. authorities are separately seeking to extradite Assange
on charges relating to the public release by Wikileaks of a
cache of secret documents and last week unveiled 17 new criminal
charges against him, including espionage.
The British courts will have to rule on the two extradition
requests, with the home secretary having the final say on which
one takes precedence.