This segment originally aired Nov. 14, 2016, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was questioned last week by a Swedish prosecutor for the first time since rape allegations were made against him in 2010.
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Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than four years, avoiding Swedish authorities.
Though Assange has yet to be formally charged, he’s refused to travel to Sweden for questioning, and Swedish prosecutors until now have refused to travel to London to question him. Prosecutors are finally willing to make the trip because time is running out on their investigation — they have until 2020 to formally charge the Wikileaks founder.
Assange’s legal team is sticking to their original claim: that this is all part of a ploy orchestrated by the U.S. government to get Assange extradited to America, where he could be prosecuted for espionage. A United Nations panel ruled earlier this year that Assange’s living situation amounts to arbitrary detention.
Ecuador has said Assange is welcome to stay at the embassy for as long as he wants.
