Swedish prosecutor aims to decide on Assange case on Tuesday

Swedish chief prosecutor Eva Finné aims to make a decision on how to move forward in the investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tomorrow, she said in a statement on Monday.

On Friday night, a warrant was issued for Assange's arrest on suspicion of rape and molestation -- which in Sweden can include many kinds of reckless behavior against another person -- by the prosecutor on duty. The decision to issue the warrant for Assange was in part made because he was considered a flight risk, according to the Prosecution Authority.

On Saturday, Finné took over the handling of the case and dropped the rape charge and warrant. Finné made that decision based on having access to more information on Saturday than the duty prosecutor had on Friday, she said.

However, that doesn't mean Assange is out of the woods yet. He may no longer be suspected of rape, but Finné will investigate the matter further, she said. Concerning the suspicion of molestation, Finné has not yet been able to make any decisions, she added.

Finné expects to be able to provide more information later this week, probably by tomorrow, according to the statement.

WikiLeaks has come under severe criticism from the U.S. government for recently publishing thousands of documents related to the war in Afghanistan and has taken steps to ensure its infrastructure for hosting documents is robust and distributed.

In Sweden, the Pirate Party last week said it will host several new WikiLeaks servers.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

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