LONDON — It started more than five years ago as what appeared to be a fairly simple sex crime case: two women in Sweden came forward to accuse Julian Assange of sexual misconduct.
Now the case has mutated into a complicated international drama involving Britain, Sweden, the United States, Ecuador, a host of human rights lawyers and the United Nations.
But when the dust settles from an unexpected U.N. working group’s finding Friday that Assange has been unlawfully detained, the painful stalemate is expected to continue, and Assange – though claiming full vindication – will most likely remain cooped up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
The panel said his stay at the embassy – which he entered voluntarily in 2012 – constitutes arbitrary detention and that he should be set free and compensated for lost time.
Lawyer and legal blogger Carl Gardner said the finding “beggars belief” and pointed out it isn’t legally binding.
“Nobody will have to do anything,” as a result of this finding, he said.
The sex crime allegations came at the height of Assange’s fame as the founder of WikiLeaks, an organization that made a name for itself by releasing hundreds of thousands of pages of classified government documents. He had challenged, and embarrassed, U.S. officials with his disclosures, and feared a secret indictment in U.S. courts.
One woman said Assange intentionally damaged a condom and pinned her down while having sex. A second woman said Assange had sex with her without a condom while she was asleep. In Sweden, having sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can lead to a rape conviction punishable by up to six years in prison.
A Swedish investigation into the crimes was launched, then dropped for lack of evidence, and then started again as prosecutors sought to question Assange about possible molestation and rape.
The computer hacker – facing no criminal charges – left Sweden for Britain, and the legal palaver begun.
Once he left, it became much more complicated for Swedish prosecutors to determine if the evidence against him was convincing enough to merit a criminal charge.
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