A U.N. rights working group found Friday that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained by being forced to hole up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid arrest.
Assange, who is wanted in Sweden for alleged sex offenses, has been in the embassy for three and a half years. He has said he fears Sweden will extradite him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty for revealing government secrets.
Assange had said in advance of the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s announcement Friday that, if the panel found in his favor, he wanted police to return his passport and leave him alone.
But there is no assurance that will happen. Authorities don’t have to listen to him or the U.N. Any judgment by the U.N. working group would be only a “moral recommendation,” not legally binding.
So if Assange steps on that west London sidewalk for the first time since 2012, he is still likely to be arrested in Britain on sex crime charges for alleged crimes in Sweden that date back several years.
The group’s decision won’t affect how Swedish authorities look at Assange’s case.
“The statement from the working group has no formal impact on the ongoing investigation, according to Swedish law,” Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said Thursday.
The Swedes issued an arrest warrant for Assange on sex crime allegations unrelated to WikiLeaks in 2010. Assange was in London at the time, and as he fought to have the warrant dismissed, Ecuador granted him political asylum. He’s been living in the embassy since June 2012.
The Swedish prosecutors’ statement noted a May 2015 court ruling that Assange “should still be detained” and that Ecuadorian officials haven’t allowed Swedish authorities to interview him.
“In view of the progress of (this) case,” a prosecutor shall continuously consider whether a decision on detention should stand,” the Swedish Prosecution Authority added.
In October, London police ended their 24-hour guard of the Ecuadorian Embassy, saying it was no longer “proportionate.”
But a London Metropolitan Police representative told CNN that the department’s position on Assange has not changed: He would be arrested if he left the embassy, with police considering the use of “covert tactics.”