Sweden says up to US to give Julian Assange the guarantees he seeks
- From: AFP
- August 22, 2012
SWEDEN says it is up to Washington to give WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who fears the US wants to prosecute him for divulging state secrets, the guarantees he has sought from Stockholm.
Swedish police want to question Assange over allegations of rape and sexual assault, but the Australian activist says the accusations are politically motivated and that Sweden would eventually extradite him to the US to face trial and a possible death penalty.
If Sweden were to receive an extradition request from a country that practices capital punishment, such as the US, “guarantees must come from the other state (requesting extradition) that ... the death penalty will not be handed down or carried out,” said Swedish justice ministry adviser Per Hedvall.
“The guarantees do not come from our side, they have to come from the other end,” he said.
Assange has been holed up in Ecuador's London embassy for two months after a British court in June ruled he could be extradited to Sweden for questioning, and Ecuador last week granted Assange asylum.
In a bid to break the deadlock, WikiLeaks has urged Sweden to guarantee it would not extradite Assange to the US.
Swedish law and the European human rights convention ratified by Sweden ban extradition of a defendant to a country where he could face the death penalty.
Mr Hedvall refused to speak about Assange's case in particular and stressed his remarks regarded Swedish legislation in general.
He said that when an extradition request is issued for a crime that doesn't carry the death penalty, “each case is reviewed based on the legislation in that individual case”, but then “Swedish legislation does not provide for guarantees.”
Stockholm has received no extradition request from Washington.
Washington said yesterday it had nothing to do with efforts by Britain to extradite Assange to Sweden, and denied Assange's allegations it was carrying out a “witch-hunt” against him.
Meanwhile the Anonymous cyber-hacking group has claimed responsibility for a series of attempted attacks on British government websites, in support of Assange.
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said its website “has been experiencing some disruption.
“This is a public information website and no sensitive data is held on it. No other Ministry of Justice systems have been affected.”
A similar attack was made on the website of British Prime Minister David Cameron, but it failed to bring the site down, a Downing Street spokesman said.
AFP
