A UN panel ruling on Friday cleared WikiLeaks Founder, Julian Assange, of wrong doing and demanded for compensation for what amounts to a three-and-a-half-year arbitrary detention.
It would be recalled that Assange, 44, denied allegations of a 2010 rape in Sweden, saying the charge is a ploy that would eventually take him to the US where a criminal investigation into the activities of WikiLeaks is still open.
The ruling ordered for Assange to be allowed to go free from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he has been holed up since 2012.
Assange, a computer hacker who enraged the US by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, has been holed up in the embassy to avoid a rape investigation in Sweden.
Both Britain and Sweden denied that Assange was being deprived of freedom, noting he had entered the embassy voluntarily.
Reacting to the ruling, Britain said it could contest the decision and that Assange would be arrested if he left the embassy.
Assange, an Australian, appealed to the UN panel, whose decision is not binding, saying he was a political refugee whose rights had been infringed upon by being unable to take up asylum in Ecuador.
It ruled in his favour, although the decision was not unanimous but three of the five members on the panel supported a decision in Assange’s favour, with one dissenter and one recusing herself.
The group’s head, Seong-Phil Hong, said in a statement that “the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considers that the various forms of deprivation of liberty to which Julian Assange has been subjected constitute a form of arbitrary detention.
“It maintains that the arbitrary detention of Mr Assange should be brought to an end, that his physical integrity and freedom of movement be respected, and that he should be entitled to an enforceable right to compensation.”
Assange had said that if he lost the appeal, then he would leave his cramped quarters at the embassy in the Knightsbridge area of London, though Britain said he would be arrested and extradited to Sweden as soon as he stepped outside.
Reuters/NAN.
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