A UN panel has rejected Britain’s request to review a ruling that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained, according to a statement released today in Geneva.
Having initially issued its opinion in favour of Assange in February, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was not changing course as the British request “did not meet the threshold of a review ... and (was) thus not admissible”.
Assange, 45, has been at the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012, having taken refuge to avoid being sent to Sweden where he faces rape allegations that he denies.
He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to answer for the leaking of diplomatic cables and other classified documents by his whistleblowing website. The disclosures caused huge embarrassment in Washington.