02 June, 2017
Swedish officials withdrew a Europe-wide arrest warrant for Assange after coming to the conclusion that it would be impossible to bring him to Sweden, prosecutor Ny said.
It was decided after prosecutors concluded, "at this point, all possibilities to conduct the investigation are exhausted", Sweden's director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, said in a statement, adding, "We can not expect to receive assistance from Ecuador regarding this".
Prosecutor Marianne Ny said she's exhausted all available options to further the case against Assange. According to USA Today, he has denied these allegations and been living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London for five years, where he was granted diplomatic asylum in 2012.
A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday welcomed the decision of Swedish prosecutors to drop a seven-year rape investigation against him, saying it was the "end of his nightmare". Sweden has until 2020 to charge Assange with rape.
Assange made a rare appearance on the balcony of the central London building to hail the decision by Sweden's director of public prosecutions as an "important victory".
The accusation against Assange dates from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint. Despite that, the 45-year-old has signaled that he will remain inside Ecuador's London embassy where he has been hold up since 2012.
Detention and extradition without charge had become a feature of the European Union, but it was not something expected from the rule of law in the United Kingdom, he said. "The MPS will provide a level of resourcing which is proportionate to that offense", the statement said.
Assange has been granted asylum by Ecuador and has been able to evade justice because he is on Ecuador's sovereign territory by being in the embassy.
Moments after the announcement, Assange's Twitter account posted a photo of him smiling.
The letter raised questions over developments in the U.S. since the election of Donald Trump as president, including a speech by the CIA director, Mike Pompeo, describing WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service" and a threat to USA national security.
He cited a comment by new US Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the arrest of Mr Assange would be "a priority".
