Sweden puts pressure on Ecuador over questioning Julian Assange

Swedish authorities have blamed the Ecuadorian embassy in London over delays in questioning its famous resident, Julian Assange, about sexual assault allegations.

“So far we heard nothing more from them,” Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny told reporters on Wednesday, after Ecuador said last month it would allow Assange to be interrogated inside the embassy.

“We are waiting to be told how and when this interview will take place, and if we will be able to be present while it’s been held,” said Ny, who added that Swedish investigators are ready to travel when needed.

WikiLeaks founder Assange has been holed up at the embassy for the last four years to avoid extradition to Sweden, where prosecutors want to question him about 2010 allegations that he raped a female WikiLeaks volunteer.

The Australian-born Assange, 45, has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing in the Sweden case.

Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no comment when contacted by CNN.

Julian Assange gestures from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on April 11, 2019. Assange, founder of the website WikiLeaks, has been a key figure in major leaks of classified government documents, cables and videos.

Assange holds a copy of The Guardian newspaper in London on July 26, 2010, a day after WikiLeaks posted more than 90,000 classified documents related to the Afghanistan War.

Assange attends a seminar at the Swedish Trade Union Confederation in Stockholm on August 14, 2010. Six days later, Swedish prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest based on allegations of sexual assault from two women. Assange has always denied wrongdoing.

Assange, in London, displays a page from WikiLeaks on October 23, 2010. The day before, WikiLeaks released approximately 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq War.

Assange and his bodyguards are seen after a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2010. It was the month WikiLeaks began releasing diplomatic cables from US embassies.

Assange sits behind the tinted window of a police vehicle in London on December 14, 2010. Assange had turned himself in to London authorities on December 7 and was released on bail and put on house arrest on December 16. In February 2011, a judge ruled in support of Assange's extradition to Sweden. Assange's lawyers filed an appeal.

In October 2011, a month after WikiLeaks released more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables, Assange speaks to demonstrators from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Assange leaves the High Court in London in December 2011. He was taking his extradition case to the British Supreme Court.

Assange leaves the Supreme Court in February 2012. In May of that year, the court denied his appeal against extradition.

Assange addresses the media and his supporters from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on August 19, 2012. A few days earlier, Ecuador announced that it had granted asylum to Assange. In his public address, Assange demanded that the United States drop its "witch hunt" against WikiLeaks.

Assange speaks from a window of the Ecuadorian Embassy in December 2012.

Assange addresses the Oxford Union Society from the Ecuadorian Embassy in January 2013.

Assange appears with Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino on the balcony of the embassy in June 2013.

Assange speaks during a panel discussion at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2014.

Assange attends a news conference inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2014.

Assange is seen on a video screen in March 2015, during an event on the sideline of a United Nations Human Rights Council session.

Assange, on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy, holds up a United Nations report in February 2016. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said that Assange was being arbitrarily detained by the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Assange speaks to the media in May 2017, after Swedish prosecutors had dropped their investigation of rape allegations against Assange. But Assange acknowledged he was unlikely to walk out of the embassy any time soon. "The UK has said it will arrest me regardless," he said. "The US CIA Director (Mike) Pompeo and the US attorney general have said that I and other WikiLeaks staff have no ... First Amendment rights, that my arrest and the arrest (of) my other staff is a priority. That is not acceptable."

Assange was seen for the first time in months during a hearing via teleconference in Quito, Ecuador, in October 2018. The hearing was then postponed due to translation difficulties.

A van displays images of Assange and Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who supplied thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Friday, April 5. A senior Ecuadorian official said no decision has been made to expel Assange from the embassy. According to WikiLeaks tweets, sources had told the organization that Assange could be kicked out of the embassy within "hours to days."

A screen grab from video footage shows the dramatic moment when Assange was hauled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy by police on April 11, 2019. Assange was arrested for "failing to surrender to the court" over a warrant issued in 2012. Officers made the initial move to detain Arrange after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited authorities into the embassy, citing the Australian's bad behavior.

Assange gestures from the window of a prison van as he is driven into Southwark Crown Court in London on May 1, 2019, before being sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaching his bail conditions in 2012.

A sketch depicts Assange appearing at the Old Bailey courthouse in London for a ruling in his extradition case on Monday, January 4. A judge rejected a US request to extradite Assange, saying that such a move would be "oppressive" by reason of his mental health.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

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Time running out for prosecutors?

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Prosecutors have four years left before the deadline for bringing rape charges against Assange expires in August 2020.

Three other allegations of sexual assault against the WikiLeaks founder had to be dropped by authorities after the deadlines expired in August 2015.

Read more: Some charges dropped, but Julian Assange’s legal troubles far from over

Prosecutor Ny said the maximum sentence in rape cases is usually six years, though in Assange’s outstanding case she estimated a potential sentence of 18 months to two years.

His years spent in the Ecuadorian embassy would not count towards any prison time, she added.

Four years in lockdown

Police stand guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Assange has been living in the embassy since July 2012, the same year Ecuador granted him political asylum.

The estimated cost of policing the Ecuadorian embassy between June 2012 and October 2015 was £13.2m ($17.67m ), according to London’s Metropolitan Police. Officers were withdrawn from outside the embassy on October 12, 2015.

Assange has said he fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty if he is charged and convicted of publishing government secrets through WikiLeaks.

There are currently no charges filed against him in the US.

Read more: Wikileaks fast facts

Last year, Assange gave consent to be questioned by Swedish prosecutors at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Classified documents

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Since WikiLeaks launched in 2006, it has published thousands of classified government documents, diplomatic cables and videos.

In 2007, it posted a procedures manual for Camp Delta, the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

Three years after that, the site posted more than 90,000 classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan. It was described as the biggest such leak since the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War.

WikiLeaks has also published almost 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq War, providing insights into how many Iraqi civilians have been killed and accounts of abuse by Iraqi’s army and police.

In July, Assange made headlines after WikiLeaks published emails and voicemails leaked from the Democratic National Committee.

Assange, who has vowed to release more information to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, has been doing media interviews via satellite from the Ecuadorian embassy.

CNN’s Claudia Rebaza, Per Nyberg and Faith Karimi contributed to this report